PERU – School officials received an early Christmas present Monday night when SAD 21 directors reversed their Dec. 1 decision, approving a proposed merger contract as written.

To say Peru School directors were surprised when SAD 21 Superintendent Thomas Ward phoned with the news late Monday night, is an understatement, said Peru Superintendent John Turner.

“Considering the fact that when we talked last night, I didn’t think we had a snowball’s chance in hell of it passing. So, yes, I was very surprised,” Turner said Tuesday afternoon.

Peru directors “were ecstatic” after learning about SAD 21’s vote, “but they were in shock for about 20 minutes,” he added.

Voting by both boards to approve the merger plan as written came after a 90-minute informational meeting with Maine Education Commissioner Susan A. Gendron, Peru and SAD 21 directors and selectmen, and a joint 45-minute, round-table discussion between SAD 21 and Peru School directors.

Following the two meetings, Peru directors returned to their school to vote on the contract, while SAD 21 conducted a special board meeting in Dixfield.

At that special meeting, SAD 21 Board Chair Barbara Chow said directors approved the nomination of Marianne Archard as a grades 9-12 library media specialist at Dirigo High School, effective that night.

Then a suggestion was made and approved to place a re-vote of the merger contract on the agenda.

That’s when Dixfield Director Sonya Fuller motioned to take the merger contract with Peru to taxpayers as written. Dixfield Director Shelly Harlow seconded the motion, and a 10-1 vote OK’d it.

“If Christmas is love, that was a Christmas miracle,” said SAD 21 Canton Director Mary Dube Tuesday evening.

“I closed my eyes when we voted, because I wasn’t sure people were willing to give up the issues that were holding them back. But I’m so glad they are, though. What a relief,” she added.

Neither SAD 21 nor Peru directors were aware the other was voting on the contract, which was two years in the making.

“We had just taken a vote on it and Janet (Rowley) just said, ‘All we need to do now is wait for Dr. Tom (Ward) to call,’ and the phone rang before she had finished speaking and it was Tom,” said Peru School Board Chair Tammi Lyons.

“It’s a relief after all these months to finally have it where it needs to be – going out to the people,” she added.

That was the consensus of both Chow and Fuller.

“We thought we had done what we could do,” Chow said Tuesday. “We do put education first in SAD 21 even though this area doesn’t have a lot of money. That’s why I went with it, because education-wise, this (merger) is the next step.”

“I think we all felt we’ve got to move forward with this,” Fuller said Tuesday. “I think it will be good for the district to merge. I want this merger 100 percent. Everybody has something to gain.”

Fuller and Chow, who at the Dec. 1 meeting voted against sending the merger contract to Gendron for approval, said at that time, they were lacking much-needed information.

Both said they were worried that the pending merger would adversely impact one or more of SAD 21’s towns, although everyone on the board strongly favors the merger.

Fuller and Chow also shared confusion over the merger contract’s proposed cost-share ratio based 90 percent on valuation, and 10 percent on pupil population.

“In the December 1 meeting, it was clear that we really felt a formula based 100 percent on valuation was the best way to go. We’ve always done 100 percent valuation, because pupil populations always change,” Fuller said.

But information presented by Gendron, and requested additional information from Ward, revealed that no one would be negatively impacted by the merger, Chow added.

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