As Conners Emerson prepares to move into its new building, the Bar Harbor School Committee is also beginning a new budget cycle and hearing continued concerns about middle school curriculum.
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BAR HARBOR—It was the last Bar Harbor School Committee in the Conners Emerson library, this Monday.
The building, along with the building across the parking lot, will be closed and then deconstructed as the school moves into the highly anticipated new building at the end of October and early November.
A sign at the driveway to enter the school’s parking lot announces that there are just four weeks to go before the move begins.
One of the older school buildings sprung a new leak in the ceiling this past week.
“There is a wind direction that is not our friend,” Principal Dr. Heather Weir Webster said.
But the kitchen in the new school has passed state inspection and there have been ongoing trainings with the school staff about how to use the new systems such as the lights, fire system, and kitchen areas.
“I’m learning a lot,” Dr. Webster said to chuckles. “I can open a partition.”
Murals have arrived from John Putnam, who is a local photographer based in Southwest Harbor with his family.
Putnam helped by providing his photographs for the walls in several spaces in the new building.
According to his bio, “His work has also appeared in the Acadia Journal, Wild Eye Magazine, and publications by the Sierra Club.” He’s also been in Down East Magazine and guides for both that publication and Out of Chicago.
“When you go to that second floor and you see that picture from the Jesup Trail” against the background, it is almost 3-D and phenomenal, Dr. Webster said.
There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles in the school, but it feels so spacious when you walk in, she said.
“It’s simplistic, but it’s amazing. I’m just so thrilled,” Dr. Webster said.
Putnam’s art helped create something magical, she said.
It’s something that reminds students of where they are, the island, the environment, and the community that they are a part of.
“We are just so close” to moving in, she said. There will be a community open house in November.
PARENTS’ CONCERNS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES INSTRUCTION
Other than a moment near the end of the meeting to acknowledge that transition, the town’s school board efficiently went through its business, October 5, beginning with public comment, when parent Beth Dumont, reiterated her concerns about the school system not having consistent science and social studies instruction.
The board had said previously that the current curriculum was outside its purview.
Dumont wanted to stress her disappointment in that outcome.
“This is not a mere scheduling issue. No one’s asking the board to weigh in on the minutiae of scheduling,” Dumont said. “We’re asking the board to weigh in on a much bigger question and that is whether or not the current curriculum is providing consistent, standards-based instruction to our middle school students in science and social studies.”
She thinks the answer is no.
“That’s not a criticism of our teachers,” she said.
She said the current science and social studies teachers are exceptional at Conners Emerson. The model doesn’t allow the instruction to build each year. Instead, she said, it creates a chronic absenteeism in the subjects.
Dumont stressed that when having conversations about the issue there is a fundamental need to refine the difference between science exposure and science instruction.
In fifth and sixth grade, the school used to have one semester of social studies and one of science in each year. That schedule shifted because switching at midyear often broke up the learning units.
So, approximately two-three years ago, they decided to shift that. Science became a dedicated focus in fifth grade. Social studies was the dedicated focus in sixth grade.
Since last May, some parents have been publicly expressing concerns about that schedule.
Dr. Webster has previously told the board that the school has been monitoring test scores, teacher feedback, and the experience of students as it considers whether the current approach is working. If it is not, the approach may be changed, but that would not likely occur this school year.
BUDGET
The town’s school board began its budget process for the upcoming budget cycle this week with a spread sheet showing the difference between this year’s budget and anticipated expenses.
“This is our best guess on the first month going into school,” School Superintendent Michael Zboray told Bar Harbor School Board members, a few members of the public and of the town’s Warrant Committee, Monday.
The fiscal budget runs with the town’s. That means this year’s budget begins in July 2026 and ends in June 2027.
So far, the anticipated budget is coming in at just about $36,000 less.
Much of the changes have to do with extra state subsidy, changes with ed tech staff and others retiring, and costs such as stipends for co-curricular contracts increasing because of teachers’ contracts, and an additional $20k in costs for bus fuel. Some budget lines are exactly as expected, some a bit less, some a bit more.
In Bar Harbor, Conners Emerson School pays for the bus fuel, but the Cyr buses stay in town.
The special ed subsidy from the state is expected to remain steady, Zboray said.
Not all budget factors likely will.
“The propane and heating oil, that will be interesting,” Zboray said.
The school will be switching to propane, which is a bit cheaper and they are going to a more heat efficient building.
“It’s really all educated guessing,” Zboray said.
They’ve locked in $4.22 per gallon for heating oil and they had budgeted $3.50.
The company, Zboray said, has promised to work with the school to gain that money back if heating oil prices go down.
The budget contract negotiation for bus drivers is not this year, but up next year.
“This is the beginning of the ramp up,” Chair Marie Yarborough told attendees and then focused on the members of the Warrant Committee Subcommittee on Education. “Thanks for always being there and showing us that you care.”
ENROLLMENT NUMBERS
Zboray also shared some enrollment numbers.
Twenty-nine years ago, in 1997, enrollment was at 518, a high in all the numbers he provided.
The very next year (1998), the enrollment decreased to 483, a loss of 35 students.
A year later, the town gained seven more (490), only to lose 26 the next year.
The trend of losing students continues mostly through the early 2000s, though there is an increase between 2005 and 2008. In those three years enrollment increased from 414 to 438 students.
The projections for next year are 322 students. That number does not include Pre-k students, which officials say will likely add 24 more. The goal is for 16 in each class, with 32 total.
“Our classes have been under 32 for kindergarten,” Dr. Webster said.
Pre-K screening is in the spring. They’ll have a stronger sense of those numbers then. She doesn’t anticipate all 32 spots being filled.
There are currently 333 students, Dr. Heather Weir Webster, the school’s principal said. Three students had to transfer out. There is one new incoming student that is not reflected in the graph below because they are not in the system yet.
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