For decades, people questioned the sense of having two school districts, each with its own superintendent, central office and high school, operating in the same small town of The Dalles on the banks of the Columbia River in north-central Oregon. But election campaigns to consolidate repeatedly failed because each community had strong emotional…

Several New England states have been rethinking the system whereby small towns make the key decisions about school budgets and staffing under the banner of local control. Maine already has mandated a reduction in the number of local school districts from 290 to 80, allowing localities to vote on the larger districts. This consolidation, unpopular…

This analysis entailed an examination of student transportation costs for SAUs that have consolidated through new school construction. School Administrative Units (SAUs) on the State Board of Education's list of approved school consolidation projects between 1999-00 and 2004-05 were evaluated to determine if a school consolidation had already…

This paper compares the sense of belonging of students at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics (MSSM), a boarding magnet school in rural Maine, with that of students at a rural consolidated public high school serving two towns. This type of structure is known as a Maine School Administrative District (SAD). The school is identified as SAD…

In the past and present, the communities of Mount Desert Island in Maine have faced the issue of school consolidation. In 1948, the four towns of Mount Desert Island each had their own high school and several elementary schools. Despite an extensive survey and community discussion, the vote to consolidate into one high school was defeated in 1949…

This paper discusses the difficulties that rural students on a Maine island encounter as they make the transition from a small local elementary school to a large distant high school. The elementary school is characterized by small class sizes, close nurturing teacher-student relationships, and the involvement of parents and families. When students…

There is an immense gap between the success that Maine's elementary school children achieve on national tests and the rate at which they go on to postsecondary education. This gap is not explained by Maine's low per capita income. Maine's homogeneous population created a culture valuing hard work, independence, pragmatism, family, community,…