In December, Lisbon formally invited Durham

to consider joining its system.
By Connie Footman
Special to the Sun Journal

DURHAM – The formation of a Community School District (CSD) and the potential impact of Durham having shared ownership of a 700-student high school with nearby Lisbon, will be the topic of a School Committee workshop meeting Thursday night.

Where Durham high school students will attend school has “been an issue filled with hope, disappointment, relief, anxiety, and controversy” for many years, say School Board members.

In the last five years it has been the subject of no less than three formal study committees, a town-wide survey, two public forums and lengthy discussions at countless committee meetings (school, budget, and municipal) as well as town meetings. However, no general consensus has been reached on how this town without its own high school should proceed to ensure that it has a high school that will accept its students.

Finally, this past December, the Lisbon School Committee formally invited the Durham School Committee to consider joining with them to form a CSD for grades 9-12, which would include sharing the costs of building a new high school.

The creation of this CSD would be contingent upon state funding of a major capital improvement project for a CSD high school, similar to what the Five Town CSD high school did in the Camden area.

If Lisbon and Durham were to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement and voters in both towns gave their approval, this would provide Durham with shared ownership of a high school.

Two School Committee members from each town formed a sub-committee to research the issue, which also included comparative information about Brunswick High School and Lisbon High School. After reviewing information from the sub-committee at their Feb. 12 meeting, the School Committee asked Selectmen to include a high school “straw poll” question as an article in the March 6 annual town meeting warrant. The vote would not have been binding – only help the School Committee in determining the level of interest townspeople might have in the formation of a CSD. School Committee members feel they need this information before moving ahead with the extensive work required to prepare a comprehensive proposal for towns to consider in a formal binding vote.

Selectmen did not include the straw poll question in the town meeting warrant, so the School Committee will conduct its own straw poll at the conlusion of a workshop meeting on the subject on Thursday.

Residents will be provided with information and the School Committee will be prepared to answer questions such as the process of forming a CSD, the quality of educational programs offered and the potential impact of Durham having shared ownership of a high school.

Lisbon High School Principal Ken Healey and Assistant Principal Warren Galway have provided the School Committee with a vision of a combined Durham and Lisbon High School that could be named, for example, Riverside High School. The new facility would handle 700 students and would give Durham ownership in their own high school.

At the present time, 90 percent of Durham’s 222 high school students attend Brunswick High School. If Lisbon were to build its own high school on its own, the facility would probably be built to accomodate 450 students. In that case, the door to accepting any Durham students in the future “would be closed” said Durham Board Chairman Jane Blais.

Efforts to contract with out-of-town high schools to take Durham students in recent years have failed, initially because many residents liked the idea of being able to send their children to the high school of their choice and the town paying the tuition. More recently, as area high schools become overcrowded, more and more communities have stopped accepting tuition students from other towns, making the idea of forming a CSD more acceptable.

Although the straw poll question is not a town warrant article, holding a straw poll between business articles is a decision that can be made at the discretion of the Moderator, something the School Committee hopes might happen, as attendance at town meeting is much higher than a School Committee workshop, and would more accurately reflect the interests of townspeople.

The workshop meeting will take place 7 p.m. Thursday at the Durham Elementary School gym.

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