School funding woes discussed

“…Hubbell said a lot of the pressure that schools are experiencing is spillover from societal problems that communities all over the state are dealing with.

“There are a lot of areas … where the state really has failed in relation to early education services, access to special services, all of the social stresses of which you are all well aware,” Hubbell said.

…

“Hubbell said that addressing some of those problems will be a focus of the Legislature in the session that has just begun. And he noted that the state Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services are starting to work more closely together to identify and address needs.

“He again acknowledged that the state has been failing some of its children.

“The evidence of that is starting to show up in these hard issues of budgets and in you starting to lose the trust of your communities,” he told the school board.

“Before being elected to the Legislature in 2012, Hubbell served for 10 years on the Bar Harbor school board and the school system board.

“One of the things that made serving on this board a privilege and a pleasure for me was understanding that this was a community that really cared deeply about and was committed to public education,” he said. “It was always a core part of our identity. I know how fragile that is and the constant work that everybody … has to do to maintain that trust and goodwill.

“It’s not something that any of us should take for granted,” Hubbell said. “And I am well aware of how financing problems can really rattle that.””

School funding woes discussed, Dick Broom, Mount Desert Islander, 16 January, 2020