PERU – Confusion over a proposed merger between the Peru School Department and SAD 21 has prompted an emergency meeting of the Peru School Committee at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Aug. 11, at the school.
Chairwoman Tammi Lyons said she decided to call the meeting upon learning that some board members were unsure of the methodology behind petitioning Maine’s Department of Education commissioner to merge the neighboring school systems.
“At our last meeting we agreed to have papers drawn up to petition the commissioner for the merger,” Lyons said Friday evening. “But I’ve since learned that there’s confusion among the board about how to ask that the papers be drawn up. So we want to make sure that everyone’s on the same stage.”
Although Lyons said there isn’t any new news about the proposed merger, there’s an urgency afoot now to get the paperwork in to the commissioner.
“We felt it would be too late to wait until our next meeting on Aug. 19,” she said, because the board, which has already voted to merge the systems, wants to put it to the town for a vote in September.
At their June 17 meeting, the School Committee asked Superintendent John Turner to petition the commissioner to pursue the process of merging with SAD 21 and to contact a lawyer to draw up a formal request on or before Aug. 30.
Merger talks began last year and have included SAD 43 in Rumford.
tkarkos@sunjournal.com
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