PARIS — For months Oxford Hills residents have been receiving conflicting information about school construction funding.

Maine School Administrative District 17’s administration has stated the most feasible path forward is based on feedback from Maine’s Major Capital School Construction Program: that the best chance to maximize funding support from the Maine Department of Education to replace Agnes Gray Elementary School is to pursue a consolidation plan that would close schools in three other communities in favor of a larger, centrally located elementary school.

At the same time, concerned residents and advocates for community education have countered that they have received different information from Maine DOE: that it is possible for Oxford Hills to continue its longstanding tradition of smaller elementary schools and build such a school in West Paris to replace the aged, unsafe and now-shuttered Agnes Gray.

Joe Britton (left) and Lance Whitehead of Lavallee Brensinger address Oxford Hills school district’s elementary building committee members Oct. 16 at Central Office in South Paris. Nicole Carter / Advertiser Democrat

When the issue was raised again during a meeting of the district’s elementary school building committee late last month, the architectural firm chosen to lead the elementary school construction project, Lavallee Brensinger, finally clarified to committee members how the disparate narratives may have developed.

Two related but separate entities have provided the narratives.

It has not helped that both have been cagey in the information they shared. Every scenario presented to them brought nuanced responses that never include a yes or no answer on community vs. consolidated schools and financial assistance.

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Some citizens and local officials have directly called on the Maine State School Board, a nine-member advisory panel to the DOE commissioner. That political body has acknowledged that when it comes to funding school construction, there are factors that might sway a board decision to support building a smaller, community-based facility.

As it turns out, the MSSB has its own advisory panel on such matters, which is the Capital School Construction division, led by Director Scott Brown.

The CSC is the agency that oversees school construction projects statewide and determines how the DOE calculates financial assistance to districts building new schools.

Going back more than a year, Lavallee Brensinger submitted inspection reports of all SAD 17 schools to the CSC. After reviewing the reports, Brown’s team advised SAD 17 that it was most likely to help pay for a new school that replaces not one but four of the district’s poorest-rated schools – Agnes Gray, Harrison Elementary School, Waterford Community School and Norway’s Guy E. Rowe School.

The rationale? It would eliminate the most financially inefficient and least safe buildings, while incorporating more equitable services to more students throughout the district.

In order for the DOE to invest in educational facilities it expects a program that maximizes the return to the community, the state and, ultimately, taxpayers.

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“The SSB did give feedback to members of the community to say ‘you need to consider consolidation. But ultimately, we are not going to decide this for you. You must put together a plan that we will say either “yes” to or “no” to,’” Lavallee Brensinger Project Manager Joe Britton explained to the committee. “When the SCS team says, ‘we don’t support this’ we interpret it as, ‘don’t try to move forward with this. You won’t get your funding.’

“I can tell you that the state school board has never gone against the recommendations of their director and the team” that works with school districts and contractors to navigate the process, Britton continued.

The last time the DOE approved a community school construction project was in the early 2000s when SAD 17’s Hebron Station School was approved. Since then, it has only supported building new schools that conform to its cost-saving model of consolidation.

Britton said that it is likely the state would financially support a plan that would see an addition at Paris Elementary School to accommodate West Paris students.

Most of Agnes Gray’s population has attended PES since it closed last February.

That scenario would mean that the other poorly-performing schools in Harrison, Norway and Waterford would continue to operate, even as they suffer the same lack of maintenance that eventually doomed Agnes Gray.

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