Maine’s new biennial budget underserves the state’s cities and towns because it fails to provide adequate state funding for K-12 education, according to a report from a major credit-rating agency.

In a public finance report released Thursday, Moody’s Investors Service called out Maine for failing to meet its statutory obligation, in law since 2004, to fund 55 percent of the cost of providing public K-12 education. The Maine Legislature overrode Gov. Paul LePage’s veto on June 30 and approved a two-year, $6.7 billion budget that provides municipalities with roughly $1.13 billion to help cover the cost of public schools, which is only 50.1 percent of total cost.

Moody’s says the state budget is a “credit negative” for the municipalities because it increases the burden on local property taxes and leaves cities and towns with tough decisions about how to make up the difference.

“The budget is credit negative for cities, towns and school districts, all of which bear financial responsibility for K-12 education, because they will continue to face a choice between cutting services or increasing local property taxes,” the Moody’s report says. “These local units are especially constrained because property taxes are already subject to a statewide limit.”

Christopher Lockwood, executive director of the Maine Municipal Association, confirmed the state’s new budget doesn’t meet the 55 percent threshold, but made clear the state has never met that obligation.

“I’m not sure this is any startling news, but it certainly confirms concerns we’ve had for many years regarding the financing for local governments and the real heavy reliance on local property taxes,” Lockwood said. “Maybe this will help draw a little bit more attention to the importance of looking holistically at how we finance not only state government, but local governments as well.”

Lockwood said he wasn’t sure of how this “credit negative” label could impact Maine’s municipalities or their bonding ability. The rating agency said the “credit negative” label “does not connote a rating or outlook change,” according to David Jacobson, a Moody’s spokesman. “It is indicative of the impact of a distinct event or development as one of many credit factors affecting the issuer.”

In its report, Moody’s also addressed the fact that Maine’s new budget fails to adequately share 5 percent of state sales and income tax revenue with local municipalities in accordance with a statutory formula. The state has been obligated to share revenue from these broad-based taxes with municipalities since the early 1970s as a way to reduce municipalities’ reliance on property taxes, but it has failed to do so since 2009 when the state held back millions of dollars to balance its own budget, according to Lockwood.

Lawmakers in the new budget held municipal revenue sharing at roughly $60 million for the next two fiscal years, which is less than half the amount municipalities should be receiving based on the 5-percent formula. Moody’s estimates that if lawmakers didn’t waive their statutory obligation, the state would be liable to provide municipalities with roughly $160 million in fiscal year 2016. This, coupled with the lack of education funding, requires municipalities to rely more heavily on property taxes or cut services and expenses.

“Property taxpayers continue to shoulder the burden at a time when, statewide, Maine’s economy remains weak years into its recovery,” the report says, citing its own study that predicts Maine’s economy is expected to grow at a slower pace than the rest of New England and the country. It uses Bangor’s experience as an example of how the state’s failure to meet its obligation impacts municipal government. Bangor has increased property taxes and eliminated 55 positions to offset a $10.8 million cut in state revenue sharing since 2009, according to Moody’s.

Residents of Regional School Unit 21 will vote Tuesday on a $56.5 million school renovation bond that was scaled back after voters previously rejected a more elaborate plan to overhaul three district schools.

The plan, if approved by the majority of voters in Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel, would address safety and handicap-accessibility issues at Kennebunk High School, Kennebunkport Consolidated School and Mildred L. Day School in Arundel. The plan was scaled back by about $40 million after voters overwhelmingly rejected a renovation bond in January 2014.

Also on Tuesday, residents in the RSU 21 towns will vote on the proposed $40 million annual education budget. In Kennebunkport, residents also will vote on whether to file a petition to withdraw from RSU 21 because of concerns about cost sharing and to authorize the withdrawal committee to spend $40,000 on the process.

“I think people drive by and see this beautiful historic (high school) building built in 1939 and they’re deceived,” said Tim Walsh, a senior and student representative to the school board. “They don’t see the cracks, they don’t see the leaks and they don’t see the trailer park we have out back. It’s beautiful on the outside, but the inside is falling apart.”

The bulk of the money would go to renovations at Kennebunk High School, which school officials say is in danger of losing its accreditation if its facilities are not improved. At Mildred L. Day, two wings that are sinking would be razed and replaced with a new addition on land that is more stable. In Kennebunkport, the project would allow the district to eliminate three portable classrooms and renovate the school’s multipurpose space.

Of the total $56.5 million proposed for the project, $42.8 million would go to Kennebunk High School, $8.55 million would be spent at Mildred L. Day School in Arundel and $5.14 million would fund renovations at Kennebunkport Consolidated School.

The annual property tax impact on a home valued at $300,000 would be $229.68 in Kennebunk, $219.69 in Arundel and $209.28 in Kennebunkport. The average tax reduction is almost 27 percent compared to the 2014 proposal, according to school officials.

After voters rejected a $75 million bond, school officials scaled back the projects by $40 million. Significant reductions in the proposed renovation plan include eliminating a performing arts center at the high school, moving from two gymnasiums to one gym and a multi-purpose room for sporting events, and the elimination of artificial turf on playing fields.

Walsh and fellow senior Cara McCluskey are spending the last two weeks of the school year as volunteers on the campaign advocating approval of the bond. They said the issues at the high school that need to be fixed are obvious to anyone who spends time in the school, where classrooms exceed the capacity recommended by the Department of Education and students push past one another in overcrowded stairwells. There is no functioning sprinkler system and some classes are held in portable classrooms that have exceeded their expected lifespan by more than 15 years, McCluskey said.

Walsh said the most concerning issues revolve around access for students who use wheelchairs or crutches. Students who cannot use stairs must take long detours through the school and across the school’s driveway to get to class and the bathroom, he said.

“If you’re in the main part of the building, in order to get to a handicap-accessible bathroom, you have to go 0.6 miles across the school to get to one, including going outside,” he said. “That’s the same distance as from Town Hall to the end of Main Street.”

While there hasn’t been as much opposition to this plan as there was in 2014, it has been somewhat contentious in the RSU 21 communities. Last week, Superintendent Kevin Crowley sent a letter to parents after signs popped up in town urging residents to vote against spending $97 million on the schools. That figure, Crowley said, was misleading because it included the renovation project and the district’s annual $40 million budget.

“It is disappointing to see this type of misinformation being presented publicly,” Crowley said. “It is our hope this was not a deliberate attempt to alter the outcome of the vote.”

In a letter to the editor, school board member Jeff Cole of Kennebunk said the present proposal is “hardly wise spending,” especially with the annual school budget eclipsing $40 million. The spending trend is consistent with that the interim Commission of Education recently said is “unsustainable,” Cole said.

“With the bond vote, we’re facing $97 million of spending, a very crucial test of the capacity of our communities to be taxed for education that is just what the DOE commissioner was referring to, at a time when we’re experiencing an increasing number of senior residents on fixed incomes and fewer young families with school aged children at the other end of the spectrum,” Cole wrote.

SCARBOROUGH — The Town Council gave unanimous but tentative approval Wednesday to a revised $43.5 million school budget proposal that just might win voter support in a third validation referendum scheduled for Aug. 4.

The council will take a final vote July 22 on the latest iteration of a school and municipal spending plan that would result in a property tax rate increase of 2.8 percent for the fiscal year that started July 1.

The $43.5 million proposal would restore $180,000 of $500,000 that the council cut from an initial $43.8 million school budget, which a majority of voters rejected on June 9 and indicated on their ballots that it was too high. Voters also rejected a $43.3 million proposal on July 7, when a majority said it was too low.

“We’ll take it,” Kerem Durdag, a resident who had urged the council to fully fund the budget, said after the vote. “It’s a workable compromise within the timeline available and given the political sensitivities of the community.”

“It’s so workable that I’m concerned,” said Andrew Gwyer, a resident who has fought to reduce the school budget.

In offering the revised school budget proposal Wednesday, Councilor William Donovan said it would preserve after-school activities and fund several new teaching positions. It also would require tight budgeting by school administrators, who are willing and able to do the work, Donovan said.

“This is probably the best budget package we can put forward,” council Chairwoman Jessica Holbrook said of the proposed $180,000 restoration, which would instead be cut from municipal spending.

The revised proposal also calls for directing an additional $884,890 in state education aid, which the town learned it received this month, to reduce the tax rate.

Councilor Jean Marie Caterina said she would prefer to restore $250,000 to the school budget and plans to weigh the testimony of more than two dozen residents who urged the council to restore the entire $500,000 reduction.

“I see this as a base,” Caterina said. “I’ve got some more thinking to do.”

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Nearly 200 adults and children attended the meeting, many of them wearing red shirts reflecting the name of Scarborough High School’s athletic teams, the Red Storm.

About 25 speakers called on the council to restore the full $500,000 to avoid threatened cuts such as extracurricular activities for students and professional development for teachers.

Some chastised councilors for bending to the wishes of fiscally conservative voters and asked them to fulfill a moral obligation to fund quality schools. Several said they moved to Scarborough largely for its schools, while others quoted statistics demonstrating the need for a good education to thrive in the 21st century.

“I would love you to tax me higher,” said Kathryn Miles, who noted that she has no children in the town’s schools but believes the budget is too low to educate children effectively.

Mike Turek was one of two speakers who urged the council to stick with the lower budget because some townspeople cannot afford a tax increase, especially seniors living on fixed incomes.

“Let’s remember them before we go ahead and raise the taxes,” Turek said.

3.5 PERCENT INCREASE

The $43.5 million proposal represents a $1.5 million, or 3.53 percent, increase over the 2013-15 school budget, which remains in effect until voters approve a 2015-16 budget. The property tax rate for both municipal and school services would increase 43 cents, or 2.8 percent, from $15.10 to $15.53 per $1,000 of assessed property value, adding $129 to the annual tax bill on a $300,000 home.

Under the initial budget proposal, the tax rate would have increased 87 cents, or 5.78 percent, from $15.10 to $15.97 per $1,000 of assessed value. That would have added $261 to the annual tax bill on that home. With a $500,000 reduction, the tax rate would have increased 72 cents or 4.75 percent, to $15.82 per $1,000, which would have added $216 to the same tax bill.

The school funding issue has divided the town for months.

On June 9, the vote was 1,719 to 1,408 against a $43.8 million school budget that called for a $1.8 million, or 4.3 percent increase. On a non-binding advisory question, 1,761 voters said it was too high, 619 said it was too low and 710 said it was acceptable.

On July 7, the vote was 3,584 to 496 against a $43.3 million budget that was up $1.3 million, or 3.1 percent. In that case, 2,047 voters said the proposal was too low, 1,838 said it was too high and 177 said it was just right.

The council decided Wednesday that the ballot on Aug. 4 won’t include the advisory question, which has come to be known as “the Goldilocks question.”

Kelley Bouchard can be reached at 791-6328 or at:

kbouchard@pressherald.com

Twitter: KelleyBouchard

SOUTH PORTLAND — An additional $884,000 in state education aid could help to reduce the local property tax rate by 33 cents, or nearly 2 percent, in fiscal year 2016 under proposed budget adjustments that school and municipal officials will consider Monday.

South Portland’s state aid allocation for the fiscal year that started July 1 will be just over $6 million – $884,000 more than the nearly $5.2 million estimate that local school officials used to build a 2015-16 budget because the Maine Department of Education was so late announcing its final subsidy amounts.

Since the department issued state aid figures on July 2, South Portland officials have revised municipal and school spending plans to account for a more than $1 million infusion of revenue, including an anticipated $270,000 increase in business equipment tax reimbursements.

“The $884,000 that the school department received will be split between tax rate reduction and reserves,” said City Manager Jim Gailey.

The School Board will consider its budget adjustments at a special meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at South Portland High School. The City Council will address the school budget when it meets an hour later at City Hall.

School officials have proposed using $480,000 of the additional state aid to help reduce the fiscal 2016 tax rate from $17.73 to $17.40 per $1,000 of assessed property value, Gailey said. The reduced rate would be 30 cents, or 1.8 percent, more than the fiscal 2015 tax rate of $17.10 per $1,000.

Under the reduced rate, the annual tax bill on a $200,000 home would increase just $60, from $3,420 to $3,480, rather than $126 if the tax rate remained at $17.73, resulting in a $3,546 annual tax bill.

School officials have proposed using the remaining $404,000 in additional state aid to boost reserve funds that would be used to buy new buses, replace computer laptops and tablets and maintain school buildings, Gailey said.

To amend budget actions taken in May, the School Board and City Council will consider appropriating $35.1 million to cover the total cost of school programs and services that are considered “essential” under state law, and raising $29.1 million in local revenue to pay for them, according to the board’s agenda for Monday. The difference in the two amounts would be covered by the $6 million state aid allocation.

The two panels also will consider appropriating $5.5 million – up from $5.1 million – in local revenue for school programs and services that aren’t considered “essential” under state law – an amount that exceeds the state limit for such expenditures by $4.7 million – up from $4.3 million, according to the council’s agenda. The additional local funding is earmarked for debt service on employee pension and school laptop programs; costs associated with having additional staffing, smaller schools and reduced class sizes that exceed “essential” limits; and voter-approved capital improvements at the middle and high schools.

Documents provided for Monday’s meetings don’t explain how the proposed budget adjustments relate to the $46.1 million school budget that city voters approved on June 9.

BANGOR — The University of Maine System faces a $16 million operating loss for the $519 million budget year that ended in June, largely because of $11 million in new retirement and severance costs, the system’s top financial officer told the board of trustees Monday.

Until the end of the school year, system officials didn’t know how many employees would retire and take advantage of special retirement incentives, said Rebecca Wyke, the vice chancellor for finance and administration. The system also saw a year-end $3.5 million loss in one of its investment funds.

The system will balance the budget by taking additional funds from a budget stabilization fund, some campus reserves and drawing down the system’s insurance benefit pool. The budget will be finalized later this year after an audit, Wyke said.

The budget already included using $11.4 million in emergency funds and a cut of 157 positions.

Wyke noted that the $518 million budget for the upcoming year, approved in May, is balanced with $7.2 million in emergency reserve funds.

Also Monday, Chancellor James Page briefed the trustees on the progress of several projects, including an effort to move the system to a single academic accreditation. System officials met with the accrediting agency in June.

“I’m hoping we will hear from them fairly soon on this matter,” Page said. While some major university systems, such as the 24-campus Penn State University system, have a single accreditation, most university systems – including the UMaine System currently – have individual accreditations for each campus.

Page said he wants single accreditation as part of a larger effort to have the seven campuses seen as a unified whole. It would also conform to system efforts to unify and consolidate support functions such as IT, finance and human relations, and streamline academic offerings systemwide.

Also Monday, Danielle Conway, the new dean of the University of Maine School of Law, outlined several new projects she is launching at the school.

One is an outreach program to high school and undergraduate students throughout the state; another targets foreign students for a special one-year program; and another “enrollment to employment” program focuses on matching law school students with mentors and opportunities. Currently, the law school has an 85 percent placement rate within nine months of graduation, Conway said.

“We have to get out to our feeder schools and explain just how law school works for the community,” she said. Law schools nationwide are still recovering from the drop in enrollment since the recession. The market is “slightly improving,” she said.

After meeting in executive session, the trustees signed off on tentative contract agreements with four systemwide unions, voting to allow Page to execute the contracts once the unions ratify the agreements, according to system spokesman Dan Demeritt. Details on the agreements will not be available until union representatives and Page sign the contracts.

The unions are the University of Maine Professional Staff Association, representing professional employees; the Associated C.O.L.T. Staff of the Universities of Maine, representing clerical, office, laboratory and technical employees; the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine, representing the full-time faculty; and Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #100, representing police unit employees. The faculty and staff unions are affiliates of the Maine Education Association and the National Education Association.

Noel K. Gallagher can be contacted at 791-6387 or at:

ngallagher@pressherald.com

A two-time state principal of the year who adopted an in-depth teaching model known as Expeditionary Learning at King Middle School is retiring, Portland School District officials announced Tuesday.

Michael McCarthy, who became principal at King in 1988, was Maine’s Principal of the Year in 1996 and Middle Level Principal of the Year in 2010. In 2010, he was a finalist for National Principal of the Year.

“Mike came in with a vision for King Middle School and the work he did there with staff really transformed not only King but also has made a lasting impact on public education, not just in our district but nationally,” said Portland Public Schools Superintendent Emmanuel Caulk. “Mike is an outstanding educational leader who will be missed.”

Students at King tackle subjects in eight- to 12-week Expeditionary Learning programs that require them do research, work within the community and present their work to audiences.

“King Middle School is a great place and I have been honored to serve there for 27 years,” McCarthy said. “I am very proud of what we have accomplished at King.”

Before joining the Portland Public Schools, McCarthy was principal of Bonny Eagle Middle School in West Buxton from 1980 to 1988 and assistant principal at Waterville High School from 1977 to 1980. From 1973 to 1977, he taught at Roberts Junior High School in Medford, Massachusetts.

Scarborough voters will consider a $43.5 million school budget proposal when they go to the polls on Aug. 4 in a third attempt to approve a 2015-16 spending plan.

The Town Council voted 7-0 Wednesday night to restore $250,000 of $500,000 that was cut from an initial $43.8 million proposal for the fiscal year that started July 1, said Town Manager Tom Hall.

Hall said absentee ballots can be returned starting Thursday. The Aug. 4 vote will take place at Town Hall, where polls will remain open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The school funding issue has divided the town for months. On June 9, a majority of voters rejected the $43.8 million proposal and indicated on their ballots that it was too high. On July 7, larger majorities rejected a $43.3 million proposal and indicated it was too low.

Last week, the council had agreed to restore only $180,000 of the $500,000 reduction. Then, members of a community Facebook group “Supporters of Scarborough Schools” successfully lobbied individual councilors to increase the amount to be restored to $250,000.

Restoring $250,000 would preserve after-school activities and fund several new teaching positions, among other budget items that might have been cut. The $250,000 would be cut from municipal spending instead.

The revised budget proposal also calls for directing an additional $884,890 in state education aid, which the town learned it received this month, to reduce the tax rate.

The $43.5 million school proposal represents a $1.5 million, or 3.7 percent, increase over the $42 million 2014-15 school budget, which remains in effect until voters approve a 2015-16 budget. The property tax rate for both municipal and school services would increase 44 cents, or 2.9 percent, from $15.10 to $15.54 per $1,000 of assessed property value, adding $132 to the annual tax bill on a $300,000 home.

Under the initial $43.8 million budget proposal, the tax rate would have increased 87 cents, or 5.78 percent, from $15.10 to $15.97 per $1,000 of assessed value. That would have added $261 to the annual tax bill on that home. With a $500,000 reduction, the tax rate would have increased 72 cents or 4.75 percent, to $15.82 per $1,000, which would have added $216 to the same tax bill.

The council has removed what has become known as a “Goldilocks” advisory question – when voters indicate whether they think the budget is too high, too low or just right – from the Aug. 4 ballot.

Unity College celebrates its 50th anniversary this weekend

In 1965, 10 men banded together with an idea: to start a college in the Maine town of Unity.

The founders secured land, funding and brought in their first students. Among that first group was Mark Alter – one of the people who sought to see the dream of Unity College come true.

“Very rarely does a dream become a reality,” Alter said. “They took that dream and gave it life.”

Unity College President Stephen Mulkey said the original founders are owed a debt of gratitude for their vision.

“They took an enormous risk to get this college started,” Mulkey said.

The college will hold an anniversary celebration Saturday to commemorate the 50-year history of the environmental college.

As the college has moved onto the national stage for its quality programs, alumni said, it has maintained the mission of its founders.

“They’ve lived up to everything,” Alter said. “What Unity has done is remarkable.”

Arlene Constable Schaefer, whose parents donated the land where the college was built and is a former member of the board of trustees, said the college has kept its focus on the environment and hands-on learning. The board has studied the college’s future growth, Schaefer said, and wants to keep it small.

“We’re pretty comfortable right now,” said Schaefer, who was preparing for arrivals of alumni and college friends at Clifford Hall on Friday.

Schaefer said her parents, George and Florine, would be pleased with the college and its dedication to the environment.

“Both my parents would be happy that the land they donated has been put to good use,” she said.

Unity College is now nationally recognized, Mulkey said. He said the college has exceeded any historical enrollment, its academic profile is high, the retention rate is holding steady, its finances are solid and graduates are successful after leaving the school.

In 2011, Unity College became the first institution of higher learning to divest itself of investments in fossil fuels.

Mulkey said Unity’s success can be attributed to its academic niche in the fields of sustainability and environmental science, an aggressive marketing effort to promote the school and the level of professionalism of the staff and faculty.

“This place is on the move,” Mulkey said.

Unity College adopted a sustainability science framework for its academic programs, Mulkey said, and is a leader in the field of sustainability. He said other colleges might have sustainability offices, but at Unity all the students can articulate what sustainability means to the environment.

Mulkey said Unity continues to meet the ethical imperative of the founders’ mission and thrive at the same time.

“We’re transforming into a remarkable place,” he said.

While the campus and its national profile have grown, Alter said it has not lost its culture, identity and sense of community.

“I think that makes Unity what it is,” Alter said.

Joe Saltalamachia, Unity’s director of admissions and an alumnus, said the college is fast approaching a student body of 750 students, but that growth has not altered the bond among the students. Back in 1992, Saltalamachia decided to attend Unity after talking with another student, and that camaraderie still exists.

“Nothing really has changed in terms of that experience,” he said.

Saltalamachia said Unity’s academic programs are considered among the best in the country. He said the college is no longer a secret but known nationally.

“We are everything environmental,” Saltalamachia said. “That’s the one constant and I love that about this school.”

The college has held true to its mission of providing students with a quality education, Alter said, while maintaining a small student community.

Alter said he sees no signs the college is going to change or depart from its original mission. “It has a great future,” he said.

As the college has succeeded, so has the town.

Saltalamachia said when he was a student, only a few stores existed in Unity, but the town now has thriving businesses. He said the town has grown up with the college.

“It’s been really nice to watch the place grow,” Saltalamachia said.

Alter said in both the early days and today, the college and town are inseparable.

“You say one and you get the other,” he said.

Alter, who now works at New York University, said New York City is considered the campus for NYU, but in Unity, that’s a true description of the relationship between the college and the community.

“What’s unique is it’s not the college and the town,” Alter said. “It’s Unity.”

Yellow Light Breen, an education activist and senior executive at Bangor Savings Bank, has been named the new chief officer of Maine Development Foundation.

The foundation’s board made the announcement Tuesday, hailing Breen, who has served on the economic development foundation’s board and led Realize Maine, a foundation program to attract, retain and support young professionals.

“Yellow’s background and interests are a perfect fit for our organization. He brings a plethora of relevant experience and a track record of advancing innovative strategies that help organizations grow and prosper,” said Jonathan Edgerton, board chairman, in a statement. “Yellow has been a longtime and valuable supporter of MDF’s programs. His commitments to a number of important education initiatives, along with his work to effectively boost the Maine economy, are noteworthy and align with the mission of our organization.”

Breen will assume the president and CEO’s role of the foundation Aug. 10. He has served as executive vice president and chief strategic officer at Bangor Savings Bank for the past 12 years.

“I am thrilled to be joining the Maine Development Foundation, an organization that is so essential to our state’s well-being,” Breen said in a statement. “I am grateful that the board has put their confidence in me and I look forward to working with the board, the dedicated, talented staff and all members, partners and stakeholders. MDF’s non-partisan, long-term work to advance the Maine economy by stimulating new ideas, developing leaders, strengthening communities and solving problems has never been more critical.”

Founded in 1978 by statute, the Maine Development Foundation works to drive long-term sustainable growth for the state. Among its initiatives is compiling and publishing Measures of Growth, an annual assessment of key data and indicators that reflect the well-being of Maine’s economy. Published in partnership with the Maine Economic Growth Council, which guides state decision-making and policy initiatives, Measures of Growth grades the progress (or lack thereof) of benchmarks such as worker productivity, energy costs and high-speed Internet subscribers. The report has been published for 21 years.

Breen will replace Harold Clossey, who resigned unexpectedly in April for health and personal reasons. He will be the third CEO to assume the position since longtime CEO Laurie Lachance resigned in 2012 to become president of Thomas College. Lachance’s eight-year year tenure was followed by an 11-month stint of Ed Cervone, who had been program director for the Maine Economic Growth Council. Cervone left in August 2013 for personal reasons, and assumed the executive director position at Educate Maine last year. Clossey was hired in January 2014.

A Maine native, Breen was born and raised in St. Albans, where he graduated from Nokomis Regional High School. He went on to Harvard University and majored in government before attending Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Following graduation, he was named a Kaufman Fellow for “truly exceptional promise for work in the public interest.”

Recently, he has served as chair of both the Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education and Educate Maine. He lives with his family in Holden.

Scarborough voters finally passed a 2015-16 school budget Tuesday, ending a contentious, monthslong validation process on the third attempt.

The vote was 1,679-1,053 in favor of the $43.5 million spending plan, with 22 ballots voided because they weren’t filled out properly, according to Town Clerk Tody Justice. Voter turnout was 18 percent, with 2,754 registered voters casting ballots, including 792 absentee ballots.

The $43.5 million budget is $250,000 less than the initial $43.8 million proposal that voters rejected on June 9, and it’s $250,000 more than the $43.3 million proposal that voters rejected on July 7.

Town Manager Tom Hall said municipal and school officials already have begun talking with parents and concerned taxpayers about ways to promote a smoother budget process next year.

“I am pleased that the community can move forward,” Hall said in a written statement. “We are committed to improving the process and connecting with the community going forward.”

The school funding issue has divided the town for months, fueling anti-tax and pro-school groups and drawing high voter turnouts; 4,080 residents, or 26 percent of registered voters, cast ballots in the July 7 referendum.

Restoring $250,000 in the final budget proposal preserved after-school activities and paid for several new teaching positions, among other budget items that might have been cut under a $500,000 reduction that was rejected July 7.

“This vote validates the community’s commitment to funding high-quality schools for the benefit of all our citizens,” Stacey Neumann, a parent who started Supporters of Scarborough Schools, said in a written statement.

“Proper school funding must be a priority,” Neumann said. “We look forward to supporting the Town Council and School Board in the months and years to come as we strive to strengthen our schools and public education.”

The approved budget for fiscal 2016, which started July 1, also calls for directing an additional $884,890 in state education aid to reduce the tax rate. The town learned about the additional subsidy on July 2.

The $43.5 million spending plan represents a $1.5 million, or 3.7 percent, increase over the $42 million 2014-15 school budget, which remained in effect until voters approved the 2015-16 budget. The property tax rate for both municipal and school services will increase 44 cents, or 2.9 percent, from $15.10 to $15.54 per $1,000 of assessed property value, adding $132 to the annual tax bill on a $300,000 home.

Under the initial $43.8 million budget proposal, the tax rate would have increased 87 cents, or 5.78 percent, from $15.10 to $15.97 per $1,000 of assessed value. That would have added $261 to the annual tax bill on that home. With a $500,000 reduction, the tax rate would have increased 72 cents or 4.75 percent, to $15.82 per $1,000, which would have added $216 to the same tax bill.

The council removed what has become known as a “Goldilocks” advisory question – when voters indicate whether they think the budget is too high, too low or just right – from Tuesday’s ballot.

Interim Portland Superintendent Jeanne Crocker announced a new chief academic officer, a new director of school management and a new director of transportation for the district on Tuesday, filling several top administrative positions.

The central office has had a complete turnover of its top staff since last fall. The hires announced Tuesday at a meeting of the city school board complete the director-level vacancies, said Crocker, who was named interim superintendent on July 7 after Emmanuel Caulk resigned to become superintendent in Lexington, Kentucky.

New transportation director Fred Barlow, most recently general manager of Durham School Services in Rochester, New York, told the board that one of his first tasks will be to coordinate the new school bus routes and schedules to accommodate the school start times. All high school students will be riding Metro buses this year.

Barlow said he is working with transportation staff to make some changes to the school bus routes, such as cutting out some side-street routes and some bus stops, with students directed to more primary roads.

The new routes will be finalized the week of Aug. 10, and parents would be notified of their child’s bus stop location by postcard the week of August 17.

“We’ve had some bus stops evolve over time, and gone into some side streets. It’s not as efficient as we need to be to meet the mandate we’ve been given,” Barlow said.

One route the department tested can be reduced from 41 minutes to 20 minutes, he said.

“There is significant savings there,” he said. “The trade-off is that some families, some children, may walk up to a quarter-mile or thereabouts to a major roadway.”

Chief Academic Officer Becky Foley has been assistant superintendent in School Administrative District 52 in Lewiston-Auburn since 2011, and before that she was principal at North Yarmouth Middle School for almost 10 years.

Foley has a master’s degree in education administration from the University of Southern Maine and is about to finish her doctorate in public policy at USM.

“I’m very excited to be here and be part of the team,” Foley told the school board at its meeting at City Hall.

In other moves, Crocker announced that Kim Brandt will be the new director of school management, working closely with principals at district schools. Crocker served in that role before being named superintendent.

Brandt, the 2012 Maine Middle School Principal of the Year, had been assistant superintendent in Regional School Unit 6 in Poland since 2013. Before that she was principal of Greely Middle School in Cumberland starting in 2005.

Caroline MacKenzie is driving herself crazy trying to stay on top of paying for college and actually having enough time to attend it.

MacKenzie, a junior, needs to work as many hours as possible to pay her rent, food and tuition at the University of Maine. But she also needs as much free time as possible to take classes and study so she can graduate as quickly as possible.

It’s a constant pressure cooker.

“I think the hardest part is that you are always sacrificing something. I have to work to pay my rent, but if I didn’t have to work, I could study more and get better grades,” said MacKenzie, 23, a wildlife ecology major at the University of Maine.

“I want to take summer classes, but I’m trying to pay rent, so there’s no way I can save a grand to take that one class in the summer.”

This summer MacKenzie has a full-time, paid internship at the Fields Pond Audubon Center in Holden. But she also expects to graduate within two years with about $45,000 in student-loan debt.

The average debt for a UMaine graduate in 2013 was $34,389, according to The Project on Student Debt.

“Compared to other people, that’s probably not a lot. But for my major, it’s probably too much,” she said. “It’s not a field you get into for the paycheck.”

MacKenzie, who lives in Bangor, said she grew up knowing she wanted to study ecology. Originally from Massachusetts, she went to Salem State University for two years before her family moved to Maine. After taking a year off to work, she enrolled at the University of Maine in Orono.

Taking that time off and paying her own way as much as she can has given her some perspective on the college experience.

Looking back, she feels like many young high school students are automatically funneled onto a college track.

“They make you feel like college is your only option,” she said. “Even community college is made to feel like that’s a poor choice, and with the rising cost of college, it really isn’t.”

Lower-cost options, such as trade schools and community colleges, should be presented to high school students as good, viable options alongside the four-year college track, she said.

For now, MacKenzie just tries to juggle her bills and courses.

“Every single time I get a bill, I panic and look at my options,” she said. “I look at job postings every day.”

University of Southern Maine senior Caley Presby has had her eye on dental school for years. But after calculating how much it will cost her, she’s having some doubts.

“It’s always been the plan, but it’s so expensive,” said Presby, 21. “Who the hell has sixty grand to go to college? It’s completely unreasonable. I just don’t get it.”

She already had to make a tough call about where to go for her undergraduate degree. She wanted to go to Boston University, but it was financially out of reach.

“I remember bawling my eyes out when I realized I couldn’t go to BU,” she said. “My mom felt so bad. But at the end of the day it’s about accepting what you can afford. It’s a hard pill to swallow.”

Today, on the verge of graduating from USM with only $20,000 in student-loan debt, she’s glad she didn’t wind up taking out the $160,000 in student loans she would have needed for four years at Boston University.

She passes that hard-won wisdom on to her high school co-workers at Beals Ice Cream in Portland.

“I tell them to apply everywhere, their dream university and everywhere, but don’t set your heart on any one place until you see the financial aid package,” Presby said.

Presby, who is majoring in human biology, said she’s kept her costs low by working two jobs, living with her parents, and being helped by her parents, who paid her USM tuition and bought her a car.

“I’m really, really lucky. I know that,” she said. She took out the $20,000 in private student loans to pay for a semester overseas in Scotland last year. To pay for car insurance and daily expenses, she works two jobs. During the summer, she’s working half-time at Beals while taking summer school classes, and during the school year, she works part time at L.L. Bean.

Todd Richard is about to take a leap of faith.

He’s 39 years old, a father of two and a lifelong musician. He’s got about two years of an undergraduate degree in music under his belt, and this fall, he’ll be one of the first students in a new music program at Portland’s Maine College of Art.

Figuring out how to pay the $30,000 annual tuition at MECA is a bit overwhelming, he said.

“I’m still making payments on all my (earlier) student loans,” said Richard, who attended two years at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, then used loans to finance brief periods at the University of Maine at Augusta and the University of Southern Maine. “They financed (college) but left me saddled with debt.”

On top of that, his wife is paying off student loans from her years at USM, he said. As a family, they’ve had to take advantage of loan deferments and income-based repayment plans to stay on top of the payments. “That is the only thing that has saved us,” he said.

“You’re either writing a check or seeking a deferment because of life changes,” said Richard, who has two children, a 3-year-old and a 6-week-old. The debt means they can’t save, and barely spend on anything beyond the essentials.

“We still haven’t taken a honeymoon. We only have one car, and we live in Westbrook,” he said. “Any kind of consumer activity is throttled down.”

Richard, who plans to continue working full time at the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine, said he’s looking forward to finally getting his bachelor of fine arts degree from MECA.

“I’ve been a contributing musician, but that is hardly where my career is supposed to stop,” he said. “I’m going to MECA to learn how to be the artist.”

Here are some ideas policymakers have suggested to lower college costs and student loan debt.

• Debt-free or tuition-free college: Embraced by Democrats and dismissed by Republicans, the idea is to use federal and state subsidies to eliminate tuition and fees at public colleges. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced a bill fleshing out the idea to have the federal government pay $2 for every $1 from the state to eliminate tuition and fees. The federal funding would be paid for through a tax on transactions by some Wall Street financial firms.

• Free community college: Proposed by President Obama and now a bill before Congress known as the America’s College Promise Act, it would pay for any tuition and fees not covered by Pell Grants or state financial aid programs. Tennessee and Oregon, and some cities, have adopted programs to provide tuition-free community college.

• Reform federal student loans: There are many ideas around reforming federal student loans, including some bipartisan support for allowing students to refinance loans at a lower interest rate when possible, or barring the government from making a profit off federal student loans. Obama last year cut interest rates on some federal student loans, tied the rates to the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, created interest-rate ceilings and locked in rates for the lifetime of a loan. He also expanded a program that lets borrowers pay no more than 10 percent of their income every month for 20 years. Republicans have called for the federal government to get out of the student-loan business entirely.

• Income-share agreements: Intended to be an alternative to student loans, under an income-share agreement a private investor pays a student’s tuition in exchange for a percentage of that student’s income after graduation. Some companies already offer this agreement.

• Hold colleges accountable: Critics say some students graduate with debt and still don’t have the education or skills they need. Suggestions to make colleges have “skin in the game” range from tying state or federal funds to performance indicators or outcomes, or require colleges to pay a portion of their students’ defaulted loans.

• Increase college transparency: Thirty-two states, including Maine, allocate a portion of state higher-education funding based on performance indicators such as course completion, time to degree, transfer rates, the number of degrees awarded, or the number of low-income and minority graduates. Five more states are adopting a performance-based funding formula. Other ideas include requiring schools to track and provide post-graduation information about students, such as graduation rates, expected earnings, and loan repayment rates, so students and parents have a better sense of which programs will work for them. Indiana requires its public universities to inform students every year how much they owe in student loans.

• Tax breaks: U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has called for all college expenses to be tax-deductible.

Last in an occasional series

Rachel Boutin graduated three years ago from the University of New England with a doctorate in physical therapy and $203,000 in federal student loans.

Today her student loan debt is actually increasing – she’s at $210,000 and counting – despite making $500-a-month payments.

She owes so much money she can’t afford the regular $1,400 payment on her $55,000 salary. She can’t even afford an interest-only payment. So she’s making an income-based payment, while her debt steadily grows.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not thinking about my school loans and how bad they are,” said Boutin, who works at New England Rehabilitation Hospital of Portland. “It’s a terrible weight on my shoulders. I lose sleep over it.”

In the last decade, the superlatives and horror stories around student-loan debt have steadily increased: College tuition costs have significantly outpaced inflation and medical costs. The class of 2015 graduates are the most indebted ever: Student-loan debt, at $1.3 trillion, has surpassed all other consumer debt aside from mortgages. The average cost of a college degree is the highest it’s ever been. A generation of graduates, struggling to find jobs and saddled with student-loan debt, are putting off major life events like buying a home or getting married.

“At some point, the boiler reaches a breaking point,” U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said of the soaring costs and student-loan debt. “College costs are going up but income is stagnating. It just becomes an overwhelming problem.”

The drumbeat of bad news has thrust college affordability into the national spotlight, even if there isn’t agreement on the best way to tackle the problem.

President Obama set the stage for the vigorous debate in January, announcing a plan to make community college free for students using state and federal subsidies. In presidential politics, the 2016 hopefuls have made a point of staking out positions on college affordability, a tactic usually reserved for the economy, energy issues or crime.

In statehouses, lawmakers have tackled the problem by tying state higher-education funding to student outcomes or by requiring colleges to inform students annually of their debt. In Maine, a special college affordability committee met for months, then proposed a series of bills ranging from increasing aid to requiring the public colleges to adopt cost-cutting measures.

Virtually no one is satisfied with the status quo.

“We are setting up generations for failure,” said Rep. Matthea Daughtry, D-Brunswick, who co-chaired the college affordability commission. A member of the Legislature’s Youth Caucus, Daughtry said her own student-loan debt forced her to move in with her parents for almost two years after graduating from Smith College in 2009 with more than $20,000 in student-loan debt. An art major, she started her own photography business and worked three jobs to save money, and recently closed on her first house.

“I saw it firsthand, how difficult it was and how much (student-loan debt) set me behind in my life,” Daughtry said. “It’s a life sentence.”

‘THAT AMERICA IS GONE’

Democrats have rallied around the ideas of lowering college costs through higher state and federal subsidies, reforming student loans to allow for refinancing high interest rates, or preventing the federal government from profiting off federal student loans. Republicans have embraced proposals that include calling for more accountability for colleges, deregulating the student-loan market or making college tuition tax-deductible.

A bipartisan “one-two punch” approach is needed, according to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who shot onto the national political landscape as a freshman legislator with her call to reform federal student-loan rates.

“Democrats talk about resources, pointing out that we are no longer investing in our kids the way we once did. Republicans talk about risk and incentives, arguing that students take on debt without fully understanding the consequences and that colleges get access to federal dollars pretty much no matter the quality of the education they provide. The trick is, they’re both right,” Warren said in June, in a speech to the American Federation of Teachers. “Our college crisis needs a one-two punch: more resources and better incentives to keep costs low.”

“It’s time to dramatically reform higher education,” she said. “Graduating without big debt was a real possibility for every kid in this country. That America is gone, and the question is: How do we bring it back?”

POLITICIANS OFFER PLANS

In addition to promoting free community college, Obama signed legislation last year cutting interest rates on some federal student loans, tying the rates to the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, creating interest-rate ceilings and locking in rates for the lifetime of a loan. He also signed an executive order to expand a program that lets borrowers pay no more than 10 percent of their income every month for 20 years. After that, the balance is forgiven, but the borrower must pay taxes on the amount forgiven.

Congress has taken up a bill based on Obama’s community college proposal that would create a matching grant where the feds would kick in $2 for every $1 that states spend toward waiving community college tuition and fees for eligible students.

“Higher education should be a path to shared prosperity, not a path into suffocating debt,” a co-sponsor, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said on July 8, when she introduced the America’s College Promise Act.

No-tuition community college plans are already in place in some states.

Obama’s proposal is modeled on the “Tennessee Promise,” a program launching this fall that uses lottery money to fund an endowment to pay the program’s estimated $35 million annual cost. In mid-July, Oregon adopted its own version of the plan, which is expected to cost the state an estimated $10 million a year to pay the “last dollar” costs that remain after federal and state aid.

King has introduced or supported several college affordability bills that have drawn bipartisan support, including the Repay Act, which simplifies federal student-loan repayment programs to one of two plans: a fixed repayment over 10 years, or an income-driven repayment plan over either 20 or 25 years, depending on the amount borrowed. That bill was backed by Republican U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Marco Rubio of Florida, who is also a presidential candidate. King also introduced the Fast Act, which would simplify the process of applying for and receiving federal financial aid, allow year-round use of Pell Grants, discourage overborrowing and simplify repayments.

“(Student debt) is really becoming a serious burden on people leaving school. A lot of graduates have a mortgage, but they don’t have a house,” King said.

“The greatest engine of growth of the middle class is access to higher education,” King said. “We lose an enormous amount in our society if only rich people can go to college. We have got to figure that out.”

Among the Democrats running for president, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley both have endorsed a tuition-free college plan. O’Malley admitted the issue is personal: He and his wife have taken out $339,200 in federal student loans for parents to pay for their two daughters to go to college.

Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton has not presented a specific plan but said during her campaign kickoff speech in June that she would work on college costs.

“Let’s make college affordable and available to all … and lift the crushing burden of student debt,” she said. At an education conference in March, she acknowledged that skyrocketing costs have begun to put college out of reach for many Americans.

“I worry that we’re closing the doors to higher education in our own country,” Clinton said. “This great model that we’ve had that’s meant so much to so many is becoming further and further away from too many.”

Republican front runner Jeb Bush, speaking at the same education conference, agreed: “Higher education in America has a growing affordability problem.”

More recently he has dismissed the idea of tuition-free college as “more free stuff” and instead said students could lower their costs by increasing their course load and graduating within four years.

Sanders introduced a bill in May to fund the $70 billion-a-year plan with two-thirds federal funds – paid for through a tax on transactions by hedge funds, investment houses and other Wall Street firms – and one-third from the states. The federal funds would replace all tuition and fees at public colleges, and be earmarked for teaching and hiring faculty. They could not be used to pay for administrator salaries, merit aid or construction on nonacademic buildings like stadiums and student centers. The bill would also expand work-study programs and allow students to refinance their loans.

“It is time for a fundamental change in how we approach the financing of higher education,” Sanders said at the time. The bill would also eliminate federal profits on student loans and expand work-study programs.

Other Republican presidential candidates are also presenting college affordability proposals.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee support letting borrowers refinance federal student loans, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has called for all college expenses to be tax-deductible.

THE STATES STEP IN

Across the nation, state lawmakers are chipping away at the issues, too.

Approaches vary, but since state lawmakers hold the purse strings for public colleges, many reforms have tied those funds to schools meeting certain benchmarks.

Thirty-two states, including Maine, already have a funding formula that allocates a portion of higher education funding based on performance indicators such as course completion, time to degree, transfer rates, the number of degrees awarded, or the number of low-income and minority graduates. Five more states are adopting a performance-based funding formula.

Other states have taken aim directly at student debt. A new law in Indiana, signed by the governor this month, requires public universities to inform students in an email or letter every year about how much they owe in student loans.

In Maine, Daughtry said the lawmakers on the college affordability commission achieved their top goal to increase the Maine State Grant award, and got more overall funding approved for higher education. Other bills made minor adjustments, such as increasing a college tax credit, and requiring public colleges to adopt efficiency standards, she said.

“I think we really had a good strong start, but we have a lot of work going forward,” Daughtry said.

Rep. Matthew Pouliot, R-Augusta, said he supports a mix of increased state investment along with reform measures, and opportunities for graduates to refinance high-interest student loans. He tried, but failed, to get a $5 million state bond to help Maine residents refinance high-interest student loans.

But all those things come with a price tag.

“We all have our own ideas of what things should cost,” said Pouliot, who was also on the college affordability commission. “At the end of the day, the facts are the facts: The costs are rising exponentially, and unless we as a state invest in (higher education), the costs will continue to rise.”

Pouliot said it’s unrealistic to think the state will significantly increase funding for higher education, given the state economy. But lawmakers can focus on overseeing the public systems.

“What we can control is the affordability of our Maine campuses, and what we’re prioritizing is less ivory tower and more about providing a good education at an affordable rate,” Pouliot said.

The schools themselves have adopted new programs and policies aimed at helping students get through their college years more efficiently – keeping costs down without wasting time and tuition money – and helping them stay in school, since dropouts face the double penalty of incurring debt without receiving a diploma.

Currently, about 79 percent of freshmen return the following year at the University of Maine. The target retention rate is 85 percent, said Provost Jeff Hecker.

“It’s the right thing to do and it will also help us with our budgetary challenges,” Hecker said.

The schools also want to help students graduate within four years, avoiding a costly fifth year of student-loan debt.

The University of Maine is launching a “Think 30″ program this fall to encourage students to take at least 30 credit hours every year, Hecker said. To graduate on time, students should take 15 credit hours per semester, but 12 is considered full-time. Currently, more than a third of UMaine students end their freshman year with fewer than 30 credits.

The public schools are also making it easier to transfer between two-year and four-year schools. That means a student can go to the lower-cost community colleges to begin college, or a four-year student in danger of dropping out can switch gears and get an associate degree.

‘I GAVE UP MY AMERICAN DREAM’

Boutin is looking at 25 years of payments that will adjust depending on her income.

When it ends, when she’s 50 years old, the remaining balance will be forgiven, but she’ll have to pay income tax on the amount that is forgiven.

Rachel Boutin, a physical therapist at New England Rehabilitation Hospital, amassed staggering debt as she pursued an education. What she owes is actually growing, even as she makes $500 monthly payments.

“I’m so terrified that in 25 years I am just going to be so screwed,” said Boutin.

Boutin said she’s torn between loving her job as a physical therapist and hating her debt.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to buy a house,” she said. “I would love to travel, but I don’t feel like I can spend that money.”

But she wouldn’t want to stop working with stroke patients in acute rehabilitation therapy.

“They can’t talk. They can’t eat. I see them every day and I teach them to walk again, to stand up and get out of bed. I help them get home again,” she said. “I feel like I gave up my American dream of owning a home to help other people get into their homes.”

Undeterred by recent tests showing that radio frequency emissions from a cell tower at Deering High School are well below federal standards, some teachers are trying to garner community support to remove the tower from the school’s roof.

In late May, Deering biology teacher Polly Wilson reported that goldfish she kept in Room 305, right below the tower, kept dying. She and other teachers concerned about the tower met with district officials, and then-Superintendent Emmanuel Caulk ordered the tests.

The reports from U.S. Cellular and C Square Systems of New Hampshire, which both tested the cell tower, found that the radio frequency levels were below federal standards, and in some cases were lower than earlier readings, according to Craig Worth, the school district’s deputy chief operations officer. The reports show that the readings in Wilson’s room ranged from .03 percent to 1.07 percent of the maximum permissible exposure under FCC standards.

“There’s absolutely no educational benefit having that tower on top of Deering. Let’s take it down. Let’s do the right thing,” said Gus Goodwin, Wilson’s husband and a technology teacher at King Middle School. Goodwin has been a leading advocate for removing the tower.

Goodwin said he has seen the reports, but still plans to meet with parent teacher organizations at Portland schools this fall to gather support to remove the tower, which has been in place since 2006.

In late May, 91 Deering High School staff members signed a “statement of concern” requesting that the cell tower be removed because it has no educational value, according to social studies teacher Kirsten Platt, who collected the signatures. The district gets about $36,000 a year from leasing the roof space to U.S. Cellular.

The findings from the recent reports do not change Platt’s position, she said Monday.

“There’s no study on long-term, low-exposure limits,” she said. “That’s my concern.”

The safety of radio frequency waves is a subject of long-standing dispute.

The Federal Communications Commission says radio frequency emissions from antennas used for cell towers result in exposure levels on the ground that are typically thousands of times below safety limits. The agency monitors RF radiation for possible impact on the environment, including human exposure, according to the FCC website.

However, critics of cell towers note that cellphone emissions are classified by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer as possibly carcinogenic to humans. In a 10-year review of research, the agency didn’t find a causal relationship between radio frequency energy and cancer, but couldn’t rule out the possibility.

Experts note that radio frequency waves barely penetrate water and don’t damage DNA like X-rays do, but instead generate heat, in the same way that microwaves operate. An excessively high concentration of radio waves from a cell tower could, hypothetically, cause a burn or excessive heat.

The FCC allows an ERP – effective radiated power – of up to 500 watts per channel. Most cell towers in urban and suburban areas operate at an ERP of 100 watts per channel or less, according to the FCC website. The FCC last updated its guidelines for evaluating human exposure to RF fields from fixed antennas used for cellphone service in 1996.

Sometime this fall, Goodwin hopes to present the signatures and their findings to the school board.

“I guess it comes down to what people want to do. It’s really about what does the community think is the best thing to do, given what we know,” Goodwin said. “I would think it would be some kind of organized effort to get people to have a voice and say Portland Public Schools should probably have some kind of policy on Wi-Fi and cell towers.”

Wilson knows her experiments aren’t proof that the cell tower is causing the fish to die, and the reports indicate there is not a safety issue, but she still wants the tower removed.

“There is a larger conversation going on,” Wilson said. “Tech is so much a part of our lives that people don’t want to acknowledge that their phone, what they do all day, could in some way be not so good for them.”

TEACHER LEAVING OVER TOWER

Wilson said the situation is behind her decision to leave Deering and teach special education students at Reiche Elementary School this fall.

“It wasn’t just the fish. For three years, none of the projects worked the way they did before (the tower was installed.) I couldn’t teach science that way,” she said.

U.S. Cellular added three more antennas to the Deering tower array in 2011, for a total of six. The company issued a report after those additions, in January 2012, that found RF readings were below FCC safety standards throughout the building and school grounds. However, it did note that the highest readings inside the building were in Room 305.

Worth, the district’s deputy chief operations officer, said he thought the issue would eventually be brought before the school board for discussion. Acting Superintendent Jeanne Crocker was not available for comment on Monday.

Goodwin and Wilson said district officials had been very responsive to their concerns.

Representatives from U.S. Cellular did not respond to requests for comment about the Deering cell tower on Monday, but in emails to the district company officials said they had 22 towers located on schools, churches and hospitals in Maine and New Hampshire. The representative also noted that if the Deering tower were removed or turned off, there would be “significant coverage loss especially indoor coverage at the Deering High School and surrounding areas,” and it would “also impact customer’s ability to make emergency/911 calls in the area.”

Maine has received a three-year extension of a waiver on some provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind law, allowing more flexibility in setting progress goals and benchmarking students’ achievement.

The waiver, originally granted to Maine in 2013, centered on the state’s plan to place Maine’s 380 Title I schools into five categories, based on students’ proficiency and progress. The categories are called: priority, focus, monitor, progressing and meeting.

“This renewal of the waiver required diligent, persistent work,” said Thomas Desjardin, Maine’s acting education commissioner. “We worked relentlessly with Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education and his staff as the federal government had exerted extreme authority over states in the past.”

The Obama administration announced in 2011 that it would give No Child Left Behind waivers to states that adopted certain education standards, such as teacher evaluations tied to students’ test scores. In exchange, states would get flexibility from some of the core tenets of the law, such as having 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

A couple of weeks before Christmas 2012, two mid-level staffers from the Foundation for Excellence in Education – a Florida-based education reform organization founded and chaired by Jeb Bush – were preparing to fly up to Maine for meetings with state education officials here.

It was awkward timing, as Gov. Paul LePage’s administration was under fire after revelations that it had allowed foundation officials to ghost-write many of the state’s virtual charter school policies – including draft legislation, strategic policy goals, and the text of one of LePage’s executive orders – even though their organization was deeply entwined with many of the companies that stood to cash in on the proposed changes.

LePage insisted they stay and dine at the Blaine House and, weeks later, invited them to help organize and execute his March 2013 education summit, where foundation officials had prominent speaking spots. In the coming months, Education Department officials continued to work closely with their foundation counterparts, coordinating their media strategies, meeting at conferences, and securing grant funds to further shared goals in Maine.

By early July, Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen was even cautioning staff that visiting foundation officials needed “to stay behind the scenes” because “the public face of our reform work needs to always be a Maine one.”

But just a few months later, this close partnership had all but evaporated as the foundation – which helped shape the LePage administration’s education policies – became a political liability. Today the department itself confirms it has not solicited the foundation’s assistance in nearly two years.

Jeb Bush, now running for the Republican presidential nomination, has made education reform the centerpiece of his political career. As governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007, he championed what became known as the “Florida model,” featuring vigorous testing, school vouchers, and creation of taxpayer-financed for-profit, nonprofit and virtual charter schools. He created the foundation in 2007 and used it to promote the Florida model in other states.

At the height of its influence in Maine in 2012 and early 2013, the foundation shaped large portions of LePage’s education agenda, including the successful introduction of virtual charter schools and the “A-F” grading of public schools.

The collapse was sudden.

Emails and other documents acquired through a public records request show close, constant contact and collaboration between Bush’s foundation and senior Education Department officials right into August 2013, when two events appear to have weakened their bond.

The first was the resignation of a close Jeb Bush and foundation ally, Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett, one of the nation’s most prominent champions of “A-F grading” of schools, who had delivered the keynote address at LePage’s education summit in Augusta a few months earlier. An Associated Press investigation had revealed that when he was commissioner in Indiana, Bennett and his staff had scrambled to change that state’s school grading formula to ensure a charter school run by an influential donor to Bennett’s political campaigns received an “A” rather than a “C.”

RELATIONSHIP COOLS WITH BOWEN’S DEPARTURE

Shortly thereafter Bowen – a former staffer at the Maine Heritage Policy Center who had forged the relationship with the foundation and had previously described Bennett as a role model – announced he, too, was stepping down, and would take a job at the Council of Chief State School Officers, where Bennett was a board member. His last day of work was Sept. 12, 2013.

A week later, a foundation official wrote the Education Department, checking in about the “pretty robust plan for A-F school grade next steps” they had had in July. “Given all that’s unfolded since we met in July, I haven’t been able to move ahead all of the things that we’d discussed,” the department’s communications director at the time, Samantha Warren, responded on Sept. 20. “Alas, it is not the same without Steve here.”

The foundation paid for Education Department officials to attend its annual conference that October in Boston, where Bush delivered the opening keynote address and funders included K12 Inc. and Pearson, companies then seeking to operate taxpayer-financed virtual charter schools here. Department officials haven’t attended their conferences since.

When a foundation official wrote Warren in late February 2014 suggesting it send an official to Maine “to help brainstorm” about messaging around the upcoming release of the second “A-F grades” for schools or, failing that, “have a conference call or send some random thoughts to you,” Warren demurred.

“I’m not sure what support we specifically need,” Warren wrote back 11 days later. “There is a new climate here given our very well-respected and non-controversial ‘new’ commissioner” – longtime state education board member Jim Rier – so “grades will be seen as less threatening and more as the transparent tool for awareness and accountability that we intend them to be.”

Foundation officials reached out again May 6, offering to “touch base on how we can best support your efforts after grades are made public.” Warren again turned them down, and rejected the foundation’s subsequent offer to issue a news release in support of the new grades.

“In sharp contrast to last year, we’ve been able to maintain very positive coverage around the rollout of this year’s grades because we haven’t connected it to any larger national reform work,” she explained in a May 14 response. “Honestly, I do not think a statement from the foundation would be helpful to us or our messaging here in Maine at this time, however, we really respect the work the foundation is doing and the importance of school grades becoming more widely used across the county (sic).”

After May 2014, correspondence between the foundation and the department quickly dwindled to the receipt of mass mailings and short, infrequent exchanges of policy accomplishments and news releases.

MOST RECENT YEARS MARKED BY TURNOVER

Officials at the Foundation for Excellence in Education did not respond to requests for comment on reasons for the changed relationship. Bush’s campaign spokeswoman, Kristy Campbell, said she would look into it, but did not respond to follow-up inquiries.

There has been considerable turnover at the Department of Education since 2013, with Warren, Bowen and other key officials having left state government. Spokeswoman Anne Gabbianelli said the current staff had the understanding that the department “did not engage” support from the foundation under Bowen’s successor, Rier, who served from September 2013 to December 2014, when he resigned for medical reasons.

Rier’s replacement has also not availed himself of the foundation’s help, she said.

“Acting Commissioner Tom Desjardin has not engaged in FEE support with the understanding that FEE’s help was guiding as needed, not receiving their continual monitoring or support,” Gabbianelli wrote via email. “The Department’s relationship with FEE was and could be as active as needed.”

Rier and Desjardin also chose not to join Chiefs for Change, a small group of “anti-establishment” state and big city education commissioners that was created and administered by the foundation. Bowen had been an active member of the group, which at its height had only eight other members.

In February of this year, the department announced that it was suspending the A-F grading system for a year and a half because Maine students would be taking a different type of standardized test. It intends to release new report cards on public schools in the fall of 2016, after students have taken the new Smarter Balanced assessment test for two years.

The emails newly acquired by the Maine Sunday Telegram show that, by contrast, relations with the foundation remained close right up until Bowen’s departure.

FOUNDATION WAS A CENTRAL PLAYER

Between the fall of 2011 and early 2013, the foundation was a central player in the creation of a wide range of the LePage administration’s education policies. They forwarded Bowen draft teacher effectiveness laws; offered to draft documentation to support the letter grading of schools; advised him on alternative teacher certification and open enrollment school choice legislation; drafted the governor’s executive order on online schools; tried to secure funding to hire new staff people for the department who could help implement newly passed teacher effectiveness and standards-based diploma laws; provided many of the speakers for the governor’s 2013 education summit; and paid for LePage, Bowen and other officials to attend the foundation’s conferences, including a November 2012 meeting that reportedly sold the governor on “A-F’ grading of schools.

The additional emails – part of a public records request for all correspondence between Department of Education officials and the foundation in 2013, 2014 and January 2015 – show the administration continued to lean on the foundation through the rest of Bowen’s tenure. This included:

• Soliciting suggestions on how to organize LePage’s 2013 education summit, including lists of possible attendees and weekly conference calls between foundation officials and top aides to LePage.

• Receiving a $200,000 grant to support a temporary position for department spokesman David Connerty-Marin, to make way for his replacement, Warren, who was previously the spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection.

• Foundation staffer Adam Peshek “coordinating with LePage’s office regarding the OpEds” written by a foundation board member in support of “A-F” grading and submitted to Maine newspapers.

• Receiving talking points to help do damage control when Florida Education Commissioner Bennett’s school grading scandal broke and apprising foundation officials of a Washington Post reporter’s inquires to the department on the matter.

• Welcoming foundation staff to fly up to Maine for “brainstorming sessions” on rolling out “A-F” grading.

• Receiving resources for communicating with the public on the merits of Common Core standards.

Bush resigned from the foundation late last year in preparation for his presidential run, turning the reins over to former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who had served on its board since January 2013.

DEBLOIS — It’s barely 7 a.m. and a sleepy 3-year-old, Madeline Ramirez, is clutching her dinosaur stuffie and waiting in line to board the yellow school bus with about a dozen kids.

Across the road stretch acres of blueberry fields, the reason these children are here and going to school on a midsummer day.

As her parents, Aurelio and Juana Ramirez from Oaxaca, Mexico, head out for a long day raking blueberries by hand, Madeline and her three siblings are boarding the bus for Blueberry Harvest School, a special three-week school in Harrington for migrant workers’ children ages 3 to 13. Before bringing their family to Maine, the Ramirezes had raked blueberries in New Jersey and Florida this year.

“I like it very much, each year my children can go and learn,” Aurelio Ramirez says. “We know our children are safe and secure while we’re working,” his wife adds.

The school is part of the state’s year-round Migrant Education Program, administered by the Maine Department of Education and fully funded with $1.1 million annually in federal funds. It serves students from other Maine counties and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and those traveling from up the “migrant eastern stream” from Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Although it’s a year-round program, almost 90 percent of the 1,352 migrant students served over the last 10 years were in Maine because of the blueberry harvest Down East, according to David Fisk, the state director of the program. The next biggest group of students – 83 – was in Maine during broccoli season. From there, the number of students associated with a particular crop drops off sharply. Other major crops, such as potatoes, are largely mechanized and demand for migrant labor is low, Fisk said.

Although some workers come from Mexico, Texas and Florida, most migrant workers in the blueberry barrens of Washington County are Micmac Indians from New Brunswick, some traveling with large extended families for the season – just as their parents and grandparents did.

“It’s a tradition. I came here as a child, and I brought my kids when we used to work in the blueberry fields,” said Peggy Clement, who started teaching at the school about 15 years ago and is a teacher and Head Start director in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick. “A lot of families in our community come and they depend on the school.”

Donna Augustine, a Micmac who is a community liaison for the school, said the Micmacs have always traveled to follow the hunting and fishing seasons.

“I was raking when I was 8 years old,” said Augustine, now 63. “It’s become traditional for our people.”

The school has become an important part of the experience, said Augustine, whose Micmac spirit name is Thunderbird Turtle Woman.

“It’s incredible. It’s educational and fun for the kids,” she said. “And the parents need it.”

Back on the bus, Madeline settles in a seat while her 6-year-old sister, Selena, curls up on a seat to nap, draping herself with a pink-striped fleece with just her silver glitter sneakers peeking out. Nearby two sisters play a hand-clapping game before breaking out into a rousing chorus of “Let it Go,” then dissolving into giggles.

The bus bounces down rutted, winding dirt roads through small enclaves of mobile homes tucked close together in the woods before arriving at Harrington Elementary School. Teachers line the curb, calling out, “Good morning! Buenos dias!” as they gather the students in their classrooms and take them inside for breakfast before class begins.

‘A BIG LOGISTICAL FEAT’

Putting together a school for so many students, from so many places, of all different ages and cultures, is a challenge, organizers say. The funding for the program has been steady at $1.1 million since 2002 even though the number of students served has increased over time, Fisk said. In 2009, there were 159 students served during blueberry season; in 2014, there were 329 students.

Organizers say the increase in student enrollment is likely because they are getting better at identifying eligible children and getting them involved in the school. In recent years, the blueberry industry has used fewer migrant workers as growers switch to mechanized harvest on barrens that are flat and even.

Teaching migrant students of different ages, cultures, languages and experiences in such a short period “is a big logistical feat,” said Ian Yaffe, executive director of Mano en Mano, the Milbridge-based nonprofit contracted to run the Blueberry Harvest School.

A team of more than 32 people – including cafeteria workers, a nurse, 19 teachers and community liaisons – works with the children. There are three yellow school bus routes, traveling more than 260 miles every day to pick up and drop off kids at sometimes remote camps. About 80 students a day attend the school, where they are grouped by age and taught by a mostly bilingual staff, some of whom raked blueberries themselves or attended the school as children.

In addition to identifying the eligible students and telling their families about the school, the school workers must be flexible since they don’t know how many students will show up on any given day, or what those students may need.

The school provides breakfast, lunch and snacks and weekly field trips tied to the curriculum, which is organized around weekly themes of personal identity, conservation and coastal Maine.

This past Thursday, students were going on a hike but many didn’t have proper shoes. In the cafeteria, more than a dozen children headed to the stage to sift through the piles of donated sneakers to find the right size, leaving behind their sandals and flip-flops.

Later, at Pigeon Hill in Steuben, the students hiked over a mile through the forest, stopping to read “The Lorax” in English and Spanish and discussing conservation before arriving at a clearing on top of the hill, overlooking a classic Down East vista of forest and coastline.

“We’re trying to keep the kids engaged over the summer. A lot of the kids have gaps in their education because of their moves,” said teacher Emma McCumber.

‘WE EXIST FOR THEM’

Yaffe and teachers emphasize the need to teach students wherever they are academically, in order to build on those skills, and to incorporate their diversity and experiences into the coursework.

In the classrooms, signs hang with words and phrases in English, Spanish and Micmac, along with brightly colored drawings and self-portraits. On one wall is a map where students have drawn lines from their hometowns to other stops during their migration before coming to Maine.

Older students, who start raking at 14, are offered tutoring services at their camps after they come in from the fields, and on weekends are invited to tour the University of Maine in Orono and given tips on finding a job or writing a resume.

“They are in a school where they are the number one priority,” Yaffe said. “We exist for them. It’s their school and their parents’ school – not the other way around.”

The school is constantly in flux, with a mix of new and familiar students. Many are returning in the annual migration from their home, while others are arriving for the first time. Last year, the average number of days attended by each student was eight – students come and go depending on their parents’ situation, and some older students work some days and come to school on others. Some students are Passamaquoddy from Maine, but qualify for migrant education services because their families crossed a school district boundary to work. Other students come from away but have settled in the area and qualify for migrant education for three years.

The federal Migrant Education Program, created in 1966, provides funds nationwide so students can continue their education, including testing and grade-specific programming, even as they move around the country. A centralized reporting system allows the states to record how many days students attended school and share educational and health information as students move from state to state. The program had nationwide funding of $374.7 million in fiscal year 2014.

Yaffe said Blueberry Harvest School staff members work to establish strong ties to the students and their native cultures.

“It’s really about celebrating their identity,” Yaffe said.

Teachers use books in the students’ native languages, and 70 percent of the school staff is bilingual, he said.

‘A PASSION FOR LEARNING’

In past years, the school has operated out of various locations, including space at University of Maine at Machias. Being able to use Harrington Elementary School – with its cafeteria, small scale furniture, playground, age-appropriate books and traditional setting – makes it easier to run the program, Yaffe said.

Five-year-old Ryleigh Googoo is a third-generation Micmac at the school. Her mother, Alexsanderine Stevens, is raking this season, but in the past she attended the school and worked as a teacher’s aide. Her mother, Mary Marshall, has been working with the school for over 20 years as a community liaison. They have more than 20 people in their extended family here for the season, Stevens said.

“It was fun,” Stevens said of her time at the school. “(Ryleigh) talks about it. She didn’t need any convincing to go. She loves it.”

At a parents’ night, the staff served dinner and showed parents a video of their children playing at the school and out at a weekly swimming session in Machias. Augustine led the room in a call-and-response drum song, then an alligator dance borrowed from the Seminole tribe in Florida.

“Aqui! Aqui!” 6-year-old Selena Ramirez called to her parents, leading them to her classroom after the dance. She proudly showed them her artwork on the walls, including a paper cutout of a blueberry and a house with bits of her family’s story: “We moved then we moved again. We stay there until we go back to Florida and then I was happy because I miss my brother.”

Yaffe said the school fills an important education gap for some students, particularly those who are based in states where the school year starts in August and they are considered absent. School days attended in Maine will count toward their overall attendance.

“It’s really rewarding to be able to see the look on kids’ faces as they discover things in the classroom and they develop a passion for learning,” Yaffe said.

“Whether a student is here for only one week or they come every summer, we can help them be prepared to succeed in school this fall.”