The Maine Department of Education is reviewing state education requirements in hopes of relieving some of the pressure on stressed schools.

Right now, all Maine public school systems must deal with federal mandates, must ensure that students meet state standards and must align lessons with the Maine Learning Results. The state also requires that each school system create a complete system of local assessments, with a network of portfolios, projects, tests and other assessments that can be proven valid and reliable for every student in every grade.

School systems have spent years trying to develop those local assessments in the midst of all the other requirements. Local assessment systems are supposed to be largely completed this year, but many officials say they don’t have the time or the staffing to get everything done.

“It needs to halt or make some changes. We need to catch our breath,” said Lewiston Superintendent Leon Levesque.

Last week, in a letter to school officials, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said her department would immediately review the local assessment system rules. She hoped to find some flexibility that schools could take advantage of, and she hoped to come up with changes that the Legislature could make this session.

For schools, that could mean anything from relaxed deadlines to eased mandates. Officials say any help would be welcome.

“I definitely think it’s needed,” said SAD 43 Superintendent James Hodgkins, who oversees 1,600 students and five schools in Byron, Mexico, Rumford and Roxbury. “I don’t know that there’s a time when more have been going on for teachers.”

Like other Maine teachers, SAD 43 teachers have worked for five or six years to develop a local assessment system. At the same time, they’ve had to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, which, among other things, forces schools to test students nearly every year, requires teachers to prove they are highly qualified and penalizes schools whose students continually fail to meet state standards.

Hodgkins said his school system is ahead in developing local assessments, but “I know it’s taken a toll on our teachers. They’re feeling, Is this all we do?'”

Levesque said his Lewiston teachers feel the pressure, too. He believes schools are being pulled in two different directions, forced to choose between state requirements and federal mandates because they don’t have enough time, resources or support to do both.

“You really have to gear your effort to one master at a time,” he said.

The commissioner’s review would be good, he said. Some help would be even better.

But, he said, “I won’t be satisfied until I see the results.”

The commissioner’s review is expected to be done by March 1. While the commissioner can help schools by pointing out flexibility in the current rules, any actual changes must be approved by the Legislature.

The commissioner said she will also start a scheduled review of the Learning Results standards, will study the impact of local assessment systems on special needs students and will review Maine Educational Assessment, the state’s standardized test, to see whether it accurately determines students’ adequate yearly progress.