Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS) 98 approved a vendor contract with Rocky Channels Education Service Center (ESC) April 26. The contract hires services out to the ESC which qualifies for additional state funds for providing them to AOS 98’s member districts: Boothbay-Boothbay Harbor Community School District, Edgecomb Eddy School, Southport Central School and Georgetown Central School.

Superintendent Keith Laser said efforts to get the AOS and ESC to coalesce were extreme legally, and exhausting for the central office, but brought $76,000 in extra funding to AOS 98. An AOS coexisting with an ESC also meant adjusting the budget which the board approved in November, Laser said. Members approved revising the budget to $1,358,414 with assessments of $577,207.

Berry Talbot Royer’s Marc Roy said to qualify for state money, the ESC must fulfill its contractual obligations which, in AOS 98’s case, are carried out by the AOS. “The ESC … because it has no employees, has to contract out to find people to perform those services ... Lo and behold, the AOS has a whole bunch of employees who have nothing to do because they've just contracted all those services out to the ESC. So, the ESC is going to opt to hire the AOS to do the services for them.”

Roy said the ESC's revenue is the same as its expenditures because the funds collected from AOS 98 are spent back to AOS 98 to provide the services it originally contracted for; fulfillment of those services is what qualifies the ESC to collect state funds and is why the annual budget needed adjusting.

“We were kind of shooting in the dark last year when we put it together and then we went back and forth over several iterations over the winter with lawyers, there was a pretty high level meeting at the DOE with the finance directors … trying to make sure we did everything correctly … and the learning curve was pretty significant.”

AOS 98 members lost common ground on a change to Director of Special Services Chris Baribeau’s job. Most approved changes which would hand over responsibilities for Section 504 oversight, English as a Second Language and gifted and talented in addition to duties under the job’s original title, director of special education.

Edgecomb's Nichole Price, Heather Sinclair and Tom Abello and CSD's Peggy Splaine and Ruth Macy voted against the superintendent’s recommendation on the basis the need is not time-sensitive and the decision would be more appropriate under a new superintendent who may have the training to take those responsibilities.

Laser said losing the CSD’s gifted and talented teacher Emily Higgins and with no one leading an AOS 98-wide effort for the Gifted and Talented program, it made most sense to shift those responsibilities to Baribeau who is already heading up English as a Second Language, Section 504 (rights for disabled students and their families), and special education.

Said Baribeau, “When you do not choose to move forward with an assistant superintendent for this district, the oversight of 504 for each of your schools, ESL for each of your schools and gifted and talented, for lack of a better term, is certainly floundering. We do have 504 coordinators under the guidance or nurses in some of your schools, but there's not someone who is supervising those individuals or coordinating your programs themselves, providing oversight …”

The board also approved the Lau plan, a strengthening of educational rights for English learners; a contract extension for Baribeau through June 30, 2023; and new rules for administrators’ tuition reimbursement which match the recently passed language at the last CSD meeting.

The AOS 98 board set the annual budget meeting for 6 p.m. May 13 at the Boothbay Region Elementary School gymnasium.