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An Act To Amend the School Consolidation Laws Pertaining to Higher Performing Schools
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. PL 2007, c. 240, Pt. XXXX, §36, sub-§2, ¶B, as amended by PL 2007, c. 668, §42, is further amended to read:
B. By August 31, 2007, aA notice of intent to submit an alternative plan that meets the requirements of subsection 6, paragraph F. An alternative plan may be submitted only by a unit that is:
(1) An offshore island;
(2) A school operated by a tribal school committee pursuant to the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 30, section 6214;
(3) A school administrative unit that serves more than 2,500 students, or 1,200 students where circumstances justify an exception to the requirement of 2,500 students under subsection 6, paragraph A, where expansion of the unit would be inconsistent with the policies set forth in Title 20-A, section 1451; or
(4) A school administrative unit that is designated as an efficient, high-performing district. For purposes of this subparagraph, a school administrative unit is designated an "efficient, high-performing district" if:
(a) It contains at least 32 schools identified as "higher performing" in the May 2007 Maine Education Policy Research Institute report "The Identification of Higher and Lower Performing Maine Schools"; and
(b) Its reported 2005-2006 per-pupil expenditures for system administration represent less than 4% of its total per-pupil expenditures; or
 
SUMMARY
The so-called "school consolidation" law exempted "efficient, high-performing" school administrative units. An efficient, high-performing district is one that contains at least 3 schools that have been identified as "higher performing."
This bill allows a school administrative unit to qualify for exemption from the school consolidation law if it has 2 schools that have been identified as "higher performing."