By Suzanne Hodgson
Staff Writer

A $1 million deficit looms in RSU 21’s future, but Monday night’s school board meeting focused on potential savings at Thornton Academy Middle School in Saco.
Superintendent Andrew Dolloff reviewed the district’s contract with Thornton Academy to educate Arundel middle school students and found the district would save $4.6 million over seven years if the contract was broken this year.
Breaking the contract requires RSU 21 to pay a one-time lump sum of $1.49 million to Thornton for the buyout, but according to Dolloff the district’s net loss in the first year would be $585,639.
The district would save costs in transportation and special education, along with a yearly revenue increase in the school lunch program.
Dolloff said the district would save $100,000 in special education and yearly savings in transportation and school lunch programs would be $15,000 each.
Each year the district remains in the contract with Thornton the amount of the buyout decreases, but so do net savings for the remainder of the contract.
For instance, next year, the district would incur a buyout cost of $1.18 million, with a net loss of $340,427 that year, but the overall savings would drop to $3.28 million, according to Dolloff’s findings.
Approximately 145 Arundel students attend Thornton Academy Middle School and 12 attend Middle School of the Kennebunks.
Tuition for those students going to Thornton Academy Middle School, set by the state at the beginning of each year, is approximately $1.1 million.
Dolloff said he feels there is enough space in the middle school to accommodate all students, but some significant rescheduling would have to take place for classes and lunch.
Aside from finances, he briefly touched on the educational benefits from both schools.
“To be honest, I didn’t go terribly deeply into the quality of both schools. I didn’t want to make a statement about one school being better than another,” Dolloff said.
School board member Pamela Richard-Wuerthner of Arundel said she heard from parents of students in Arundel they were afraid they would start their children in one school and be forced to move them to another school.
Board member Norman Archer from Kennebunkport said it is is already happening within the district – students are being moved from one school to another due to class size.
In 2006, before the RSU consolidation, Arundel entered into a 10-year contract to bus all middle school students to Thornton.
Thornton spent $2.9 million to turn a building on the campus into a middle school for Dayton and Arundel students.
Before the contract was signed, Dayton dropped out of the contract, leaving Arundel to pay back most of the cost occurred by revamping the old building.
Since the RSU consolidation, the school board has reviewed Arundel students’ option of choosing the schools they attend. That option of school choice was retained during consolidation, but now the school board is questioning whether the contract language actually allows for a true choice.
According to school board Member John Sharood of Kennebunk, part of the contract with Thornton binds the district to send all middle school students to Thornton and pay their tuition.
If a student receives special permission from the district to stay in RSU 21, Sharood said the contract still obligates the district to pay for that student’s tuition at Thornton.
The district also needs to consider ramifications of breaking the contract. According to the district’s legal staff, Arundel students would still have the choice to go to Thornton Academy High School and Thornton Academy Middle School and the district would still have to pay for the students’ tuition.
“I’m quiet worried about this choice issue. We could spend a big pile of money and still have kids going to [Thornton]. I think it’s a significant risk,” said school board member Tim Hussey from Kennebunk.
Sharood said he had calculated even if only 26 students came to Middle School of the Kennebunks, the district would still be able to save money by breaking the contract.
Dolloff said district lawyers had not found a notice period for breaking the contract.
“If you folks voted as a board to terminate the contract and have no cause to do so… there is no notification period, there is just the lump sum payment. That is the current analysis that we have from our legal team,” Dollof said.
Discussions between RSU 21 and Thornton Academy Middle School about whether to continue the contract are scheduled to take place in 2011, the fifth year of the contract. At that time, 36 months  would be needed to break the contract.
Arundel students make up approximately 95 percent of the Thornton middle school students, according to Dolloff. If Arundel pulled out of the contract, students could still attend the school, but the number could dwindle to the point that Thornton’s middle school would shut down.
“If enrollment at TAMS would become small enough, its not obvious why they would want to continue to have that middle school,” said school board member Robert Domine from Kennebunkport.
Instead of waiting for the  facilities study to finish as originally planned, the board charged Dolloff with another study.
He and the administrative team will explore creating a survey on how the community feels about breaking the contract with Thornton and alternatives for transitioning students from Thornton to the Kennebunks’ middle school.  They are expected to report back to the board March 15.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.