FARMINGTON — Directors are a step closer to adding Starks to the Mt. Blue Regional School District.

Maine Department of Education Commissioner Steven Bowen has given conditional approval for Starks to secede from RSU 59, which also includes Madison, Athens and Brighton Plantation.

On Tuesday night, Superintendent Michael Cormier announced a scheduled public hearing for voters to learn more about the impact of adding that town to the district.

Directors will host the hearing April 10 at a 7 p.m. board meeting at Mt. Blue Middle school. Voters will go to the polls in their towns to cast ballots on April 24.

“I plan to go to the Starks hearing, and I think we are all welcome to attend,” Cormier said.

Starks voters will hold their public hearing March 26 and will vote on whether to join the Mt. Blue district, which is RSU 9, on April 17.

RSU 9 towns include Chesterville, Farmington, Industry, New Sharon, New Vineyard, Temple, Vienna, Weld and Wilton.

Betsey Hyde, chairwoman of the directors’ budget committee, told others that the 2012-13 dollar figures were going to be stretched as far as possible without making more cuts.

“The issue I see is that we have had some pretty deep cuts for so many years, and we’ve put needs on hold,” Hyde said. “We have roof  replacements that have been put on hold, and now they really need replacement, and there are a lot of safety issues in some schools that really need to be addressed.”

Voters will have the opportunity to see preliminary figures later in the spring before a referendum vote.

Board members have been reading “Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning,” written by Chuck Schwahn and Bea McGarvey, and “Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us,” written by Daniel Pink.

The concept of mass customized learning has been a thought-provoking discussion topic for directors. Schwahn and McGarvey began their book with a challenge to traditional thinking.

“A phrase we frequently hear from nearly every educational stakeholder is: ‘Kids just aren’t motivated to learn these days,'” they wrote. “That statement shouldn’t surprise anyone given the reality of today’s world for children and young adults. Life for kids is much more exciting than school!

“In our day, teachers had to compete with Rock Hudson and Doris Day in the movie ‘Pillow Talk.’ In our own children’s time, they had to compete with the TV and ‘The Mod Squad,’ ‘All In The Family,’ and ‘Monday Night Football.’ Tough competitions, but teachers could somewhat hold their own.

“But today, teachers compete, and get compared to, My Space, Twitter, Xbox, Game Boy, Madden Football, and any topic they may want to surf on their computer. Everything they encounter is interactive, interesting, challenging, and set at their own level of proficiency,” the authors wrote.

Director Claire Andrews urged others to plan for the education of the next generations of students.

“It is our obligation, as any board’s job is, to pull together a sense of our vision,” she said. “We have to step up to the plate and say what we really want to see as a long-range plan.”

Students have untapped potential not because of poor teachers but “because the system we have doesn’t allow our kids to reach that next level.”

Chesterville director Erin Dyar suggested part of the problem is that students become accustomed to reward-based behavior.

“I’ve never had a job where I could go at my own pace, and employers are going to say you can pick your own schedule, and tell you what a good job you’re doing. When the students get into the world of work, they must meet different standards,” Dyar said.

“It’s going to cost to do this, and we’re holders of the purse strings,” board Chairman Mark Prentiss of Industry said.

Maine must adopt a charter school system, New Sharon director William Reid said.

Outdated educational techniques, habits and even laws, must change, he said.

“Start fresh and build it up. Clean the deck completely and very carefully and rationally build the system,” he said.

Parents want grades, he said, and they’ll resist replacing an outdated but familiar system with something new.

Cormier suggested the changes don’t have to happen at a rapid pace. Mt. Blue Regional School District and University of Maine at Farmington teachers have shown enthusiasm and support for some of the mass customized learning concepts.

“This is an evolutionary process and not a revolutionary process,” Glenn Kapiloff, director of the Foster Regional Applied Technology Center, said. “It takes a push.”

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