SAD 46 renews cooperative agreement with PVAEC

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    DEXTER — The School Administrative District 46 Board of Directors unanimously agreed last week to extend its agreement with the Piscataquis Valley Adult Education Cooperative through 2018.
    Normally, the pact comes up for renewal every January, explained Superintendent Kevin Jordan, and the relationship between the co-op and the school system has been very positive. “From my perspective, it’s one of the best decisions we’ve ever made,” Jordan said. “The amount of classes and support that adults receive through this cooperative is amazing.”

    Jordan added that the district is now paying $54,000 a year for adult education services “and 10 years ago, we were paying twice that much.”
    PVAEC is also working with the Tri-County Technical Center to allow adults to take a commercial truck driving course and may make other offerings available if the need arises.
    The addition of the town of Athens to AOS 94 took another step forward as directors approved the inter-local agreement which — among other things — defines how state subsidy would be distributed and adds two Athens members to the AOS 94 Board of Directors.
    The plan now goes to the Maine Department of Education for final approval.
    AOS 94 currently includes all the SAD 46 communities plus the town of Harmony. Athens opted to join the district after residents voted to leave Madison-based SAD 59 in May 2013.
    Dexter Regional High School Principal Stephen Bell updated the board on 31 “mini-grants” awarded to the school by the Oak Grove Foundation this year, totaling more than $22,000. “In a rural public school, any time you can get financial help like this, it’s a positive thing,” Bell said. “Every teacher in the building submitted an application, and this is by far the most (grants) we’ve ever received.”
    The school also received a 77-inch “smart-screen” television as a gift from the Cole Family Foundation, a charity dedicated to “lifting the aspirations of children, particularly those from financially distressed families.” The Cole family also operates a well-known transportation museum in Bangor.
    Bell also announced that DRHS will not have an “open campus” during mid-term exams week, a move “unanimously supported by the staff.”
    In other news, the board took no formal action on endorsing a proposed sexual health program for Tri-County Technical Center at last week’s meeting.
    Gemma Douglas from the University of Maine has been working with TCTC for the past year on various projects and had suggested the implementation of a “low-key” sexual health program due to the sobering statistics on sexually-transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies.
    There are reportedly seven TCTC students “who suspect they are pregnant, are pregnant or fathers to be,” Douglas told the board last week.
    The TCTC Regional Council is slated to take up the issue at its Jan. 22 meeting.
    TCTC is located at the Dexter Regional High school campus and serves about 230 students from SAD 46 (Dexter), SAD 41 (Milo), SAD 68 (Dover-Foxcroft), SAD 4 (Guilford), RSU 19 (Newport) and Greenville Consolidated School.