SUMNER — Townspeople asked selectmen for more information about the possible withdrawal from RSU 10 during a public hearing attended by fewer than 20 people at the Town Office on Saturday morning.

In particular, they requested firm data to indicate whether the cost and quality of education being provided to Sumner students had improved, deteriorated or stayed the same since the town joined the 12-town district almost five years ago.

In June, organizers submitted a petition with 98 signatures to the Board of Selectmen requesting that the question of withdrawal be placed before voters.

Neighboring Buckfield voted in June to initiate withdrawal proceedings.

The two towns, along with Hartford, made up SAD 39 before it was folded into Regional School Unit 10, along with the Rumford- and Dixfield-area school districts, in 2009.

Board of Selectman Chairwoman Mary Ann Haxton said that if the town voted to withdraw, it would have to provide the school district and state education commissioner with valid reasons.

Voting to take the town out of RSU 10 would not mean the town would study the idea, she said, it would mean the town would have to budget between $20,000 and $30,000 to establish a withdrawal committee and negotiate an agreement to leave the district.

“We are engaging in a pretty serious process,” she said. “It’s more than a study.”

Jeff Pfeifer, one of the lead petitioners, said withdrawal proponents were concerned about local control, the high cost of education in RSU 10 and the possibility that Buckfield Junior/Senior High School, which Sumner students attend, could be closed in the future.

George Affleck, a resident and teacher at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, said he didn’t understand why local control was an issue.

“Nobody can explain to me how local control is going to benefit our students,” he said.

RSU 10 Superintendent Craig King cautioned against operating on an assumption that Sumner was worse off remaining in the district.

“Unless you’ve done a thorough study, you don’t know whether you’re at an advantage or a disadvantage,” King said.

He noted that RSU 10 had made significant investments in facilities and technology at the schools Sumner students attended.

Others questioned how the cost of education would have been different if Sumner had remained in SAD 39.

Judy Berg, a Buckfield resident who has been instrumental in her town’s withdrawal effort, claimed per-student costs for Sumner residents increased by $1,000 since joining RSU 10.

Many of the goals outlined for the large school district when the former SAD 39 towns joined, including more technology and foreign language instruction, had not been completed satisfactorily, Berg said.

She said that unless Buckfield, Sumner and Hartford, where a withdrawal movement has yet to arise, all moved to leave the district, the departure of individual towns would “probably not be practical.”

Haxton pointed to a financial analysis based on annual cost increases in SAD 39 and RSU 10 compiled by Town Clerk Susan Runes that indicated the 2012-13 school cost to Sumner in SAD 39 would have been $757,351, $4,000 more than the district was paying in RSU 10 this year.

She noted the small size of the hearing and suggested it might not be the best representation of stakeholders in town. 

Cynthia Norton, who taught at Hartford-Sumner Elementary School until last year, noted that six of the residents at the meeting were current or former school district employees and no parents of RSU 10 students were in attendance.

Although the school budget had worried her even before the town joined RSU 10 and she had voted against consolidating into the bigger district, the town ought to work on addressing the district’s issues internally, not by breaking off on its own, she said.

The board intends to gather data to answer many of the residents’ questions about cost and quality of education in RSU 10 and to present it at an informational hearing set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 29, at the Town Office.

The withdrawal vote will be held during the municipal election Nov. 5.

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