By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

AUGUSTA – Three state legislators have launched a campaign to oppose a recommendation that Maine school districts be consolidated from 286 to 35.

Sen. John Nutting, D-Leeds, is against the proposal from a special Maine Board of Education panel because he thinks it will hurt rural schools.

“There’d be 150 Maine communities that would not have a single representative on the local school board,” Nutting said. “They’d have no say in how the district is run.”

He, along with Rep. Barbara Merrill, I-Appleton, and Rep. Roderick Carr, R-Lincoln, are gathering feedback through their new group, “Our Maine Schools.”

The three have sent letters to all school boards inviting them to sign a petition on their Web page: www.OurMaineSchools.com.

Even though the proposal does not call for closing schools, the Web site implies that schools will be closed. The page begins with the slogan, “Save our Maine schools.”

James Carignan, a former dean of Bates College, heads the panel that wrote the recommendations. He said Tuesday that the proposal to cut school districts to 35 is only a starting point. School units could be made up of roughly equal populations, with new borders so they’d make sense historically and geographically, he said.

Carignan stressed that the recommendation is not about closing schools, but about reducing districts. He believes Maine has too many superintendents and administrators, and thinks millions of dollars could be saved by consolidating.

Nutting disagreed. “You may save a superintendent here or there, but you’d have a lot more assistants,” he said.