It’s four steps down, 18 to go.
Three towns in Oxford County took the fourth step last week when voters approved a referendum article to pursue withdrawal from Regional School Unit 10.
The long path ahead is now set. The Maine Department of Education has outlined a 22‑step timeline that towns must follow to withdraw from a school district. The first step came when an ad hoc committee was formed to explore secession.
The Nov. 4 vote marked the fourth step. The total vote was 920 in favor and 609 opposed.
If the process runs its course, the next time voters in the three towns would be involved is the 16th step, which is holding a special town meeting in each community to vote on the agreement of withdrawal. If the agreement passes, the final six steps would involve certification and notification of the results.
Special town meeting votes do not always match early referendum results, but for now the three towns have voted to pursue withdrawal.
The Nov. 4 votes pushed the project into the fifth step, requiring town clerks to officially notify Superintendent Deborah Alden of RSU 10 and Commissioner Pender Makin of the Maine Department of Education of the results. The commissioner, in turn, is expected to direct the towns to appoint a committee to prepare an agreement of withdrawal.
That is the sixth step, and it could come quickly.
Neither the town of Buckfield nor RSU 10 responded to requests for information about whether step five had been taken. According to the Buckfield town website, notification of the referendum vote was sent to Makin on Nov. 5. The Department of Education has not confirmed receiving the notice.
Neal Austin of Buckfield, chair of the Education Ad Hoc Exploration Committee that prepared the referendum question, declined an interview request for this story. He said he wanted to wait “until the select boards of all three towns have hired a lawyer and have actually started the process, and there has been approval from the lawyer and select boards for comments.”
When the notice is received and the commissioner has directed the formation of a committee to draft the withdrawal agreement, 16 additional steps will follow, including public hearings, special town meetings and other requirements.
If, at the end of the 22‑step process, the three towns secede from the Western Foothills School District, it will be the third secession since the district began operating in 2009. That would leave a consolidated district that started with 12 towns serving just four: Hanover, Mexico, Roxbury and Rumford.
Byron, the smallest town in the original district, with a population of about 145, left in 2018. Its students now attend schools in other districts on a tuition basis.
A year earlier, four towns withdrew from RSU 10 and formed Regional School Unit 56: Canton, Carthage, Dixfield and Peru. They had been part of Maine School Administrative District 21 before being absorbed into the Western Foothills District.
In effect, the withdrawal returned them to their earlier alignment when the latest round of school consolidations began, though the initials changed from MSAD to RSU and the number from 21 to 56.
In neighboring Maine School Administrative District 17, the Oxford Hills School District, residents of West Paris voted at a special town meeting Nov. 8 to take ownership of the Agnes Gray Elementary School. MSAD 17 had closed the building abruptly in February 2024, citing safety concerns. The vote was 149-2.
West Paris is to pay $5,000 for the building. The special town meeting did not raise money to repair the building or decide its future use. Private fundraising for restoration has begun. Since February, elementary students from West Paris have been attending Paris Elementary School.
School consolidation in Maine has ebbed and flowed for nearly 20 years.
In 2007, the Legislature adopted Gov. John Baldacci’s plan to reduce the number of school districts from 290 to 80. Only a few districts were exempted from the consolidation order because of their high academic standing.
In the first screening, Maine School Administrative District 58, the Mt. Abram district in Franklin County, was exempted.
Within four years, the number of districts shrank to 215. But with withdrawals in the 14 years since, the total has climbed to 264. Many of those are town school departments created after a community left an SAD or RSU.
And now, even the “exempted” district, MSAD 58, may be shattering. Three of its towns are establishing withdrawal committees after voter approval this year. They were original member towns of School Administrative District 58, organized in 1968. Eustis, also an original member, has already withdrawn, and Kingfield, Phillips and Strong are preparing withdrawal documents.
As the Beatles put it in 1970, a “long and winding road” awaits Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner. It remains to be seen whether the three towns will return to their earlier status as a school district unto themselves.
