JAY – School consolidation survey results show that most of the teachers, community members and students who participated would like to see Jay School Department consolidate with neighboring SAD 36 in Livermore Falls and Livermore.

SAD 9 in Farmington was a close second.

Annette Girardin’s Algebra II classes developed an 18-question survey on consolidation. They sent out exactly 56 surveys to staff members, 162 surveys to students and 982 surveys to Jay taxpayers. The received 33 from teachers, 107 from students and 99 from taxpayers.

According to the results, 58 percent of responding teachers favored combining with Livermore Falls and 48 percent preferred joining SAD 9.

“Most of the teachers would rather not consolidate, but if we had to combine with someone they would rather it be with Livermore Falls due to geographical reasons,” according to a statement.

The majority of taxpayers responding thought Jay should consolidate with schools nearby to save bus expenses and travel time. The top pick was Livermore Falls followed by SAD 9.

The students’ consolidation choice was closer, with Livermore Falls just topping SAD 9, and a small percentage choosing Winthrop. However, the majority of comments said there should be no consolidation.

The majority of the students also wanted course offerings to be considered when choosing a school partner with many wanting more language, music and shop classes.

The majority of taxpayers thought a larger selection of courses should be considered and, or, a vocational center. Quite a few said they believed they needed to focus on the basics: math, English and social studies.

All teachers responding agreed that if consolidation does occur, there should be a bigger range of classes for students, including more electives offered, the survey shows.

Eighty percent of the teachers want to combine town property values and populations for the new school board because they want all students to be valued equally. The majority of the teachers thought that the price per student should be paid by the hometowns.

The majority of taxpayers thought it is better to have representation based on both town property valuation and population, but, if there can only be one then it should be population, mainly because of Jay’s “extremely high property value,” results state.

Sixty-six of the votes from students stated that representation should be based on a combination of both valuation and population with 26 percent choosing just population and 8 percent choosing just property valuation.

The majority of all surveyed stated that Jay schools should be used in the consolidation and not closed.

The majority also agreed that a bus run should be between 20 to 40 minutes, and that an hour or more would be unreasonable.

Most agreed that taxes should be taken into consideration when choosing a school partner as well as quality of education, and there should be a local vote on the matter.