School Choice 4 Me

George Stevens Academy (GSA) has announced an initiative to pursue school contracts with Peninsula towns. In the last five years, GSA enrollment has dropped 25% as families increasingly choose other schools due to serious questions and concerns about the financial, academic and institutional health of GSA. This website offers resources for you to better understand and participate in honest, and necessary, conversations on this subject.

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Surry School Committee Votes NO for GSA excess tuition

Surry votes YES for school choice.

Penobscot Votes NO on GSA Excess Tuition

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The Basics: School Choice in Maine, how it works, what it costs, and who pays for it.

In Maine, the municipality that you reside in is responsible for providing a “free public education” for your children, from age 5 (by October 15) to age 20, per Title 20-A §2, in accordance with the Constitution of Maine, Article VIII.

A municipality can provide this education either by operating their own schools or, if they do not operate their own schools, they can pay tuition to another public school, or a private school approved for tuition purposes. This is known as Town Tuitioning or “sending towns”. The State sets the maximum tuition rates the receiving schools may charge, though there are allowances in the statutes for the sending and receiving schools to negotiate a different rate.

Peninsula “sending towns” offer families a unique opportunity to decide how their taxes are spent and choose where their children attend high school. Peninsula towns that meet school choice eligibility can send their children to eligible schools.

Towns that have their own schools or contract with a specific school(s) are not fiscally responsible to pay for families to send their children to another school. This is because they would already provide a “free public education” for Kindergarten through Grade 12 per Maine Statutes 20-A MRSA §5203 (1) and MRSA §5204 (1).

In 2008 Damariscotta, Newcastle, Nobleboro, Jefferson, Bristol, South Bristol, and Bremen chose to form an “alternative organizational structure” (AOS) which allows each town in AOS93 to maintain local control of their K-8 schools and offer high school choice.

Some municipalities within a Regional School Unit have school choice while others do not. It is very important to check with the superintendent of schools to determine whether or not your municipality has school choice. This information is not available at the Department of Education.

A directory of school administrative units is available on the Department of Education website at https://neo.maine.gov/doe/neo/SuperSearch/Home/Index

If your child lives in an Unorganized Territory, please contact the Education in Unorganized Territory Department to determine the education options available.

“Sending towns” usually pay a lower cost per student than if the town funded their own public school. Sending towns are only required to pay the Maximum Allowable Tuition (MAT) set by the Maine Department of Education, which is $15,055 for 2025/6. Public schools, such as Bucksport High School at $11,277, are often less. Additionally, towns are required to pay for all special education, transportation, and school union costs. Private Schools charge an additional Insured Value Factor (IVF) of 10% of and above the MAT. Public schools do not charge IVF.

“Cost to towns” and “per-pupil” costs are different, as “per-pupil costs” usually apply to the receiving school’s costs, whereas “cost to towns represents total costs to town (which are higher).

The estimated total cost per Blue Hill student in 2026/7:

GSA = $22k*

Bucksport = $14k (33% less, town does not pay transportation, IVF, or excess tuition charges)

Ellsworth = $17k (19% less, town does not pay transportation, IVF, or excess tuition charges)

John Bapst = $18k (14% less, town does not pay transportation or excess tuition charges)

* GSA 2026/7 projected costs for Blue Hill (per student):

$15,055 (MAT)

$1,505 (IVF)

$1,530 (Excess Tuition Charge)

$2,023 (SpEd [2025/6 costs…2026/7 will likely be higher])

$1,191 (Transportation)

$796 (School Union 93 Admin)

For Blue Hill, similar to other Peninsula towns, approximately 75% of all property tax dollars are spent on education. The Blue Hill School Committee (“School Board”) is responsible for budgeting, and paying, all education costs of children Pre-K through grade 12 (and even later for Special Education). Academic fiscal years run July 1-June 30, so budgets are identified by those two years, with BHCS operating on the current budget of 2025/6. School Boards usually make a best estimate in budgeting, so enrollment numbers are approximate until school begins.

For 2026/7, Blue Hill is estimating 84 (66%) of 127 total students at GSA, with 43 (33%) students attending 10 other high schools.

A school contract is a legal agreement between a “sending town” and a “receiving school” which restricts the sending town to paying tuition only for children that attend the contracted receiving school. Sending towns use school contracts for multiple reasons, such as:

The sending town does not have multiple or better options
The sending town can negotiate a lower tuition price
If the receiving school has limited or selective enrollment, the contract town’s children have guaranteed enrollment.

Currently, 33% of Blue Hill families send their children to ten other high schools besides GSA. The proposed school contract with Blue Hill would restrict School Union 93 from paying tuition for most of them, as well as future families wishing to do the same.

Fact Checking GSA:

Contracts require trust, but GSA often needs to be fact-checked

GSA first asked for excess tuition in 2018.

State law allows private schools to ask for excess tuition above the MAT ($15,055). GSA has requested, and received, $1,700 excess tuition from Blue Hill in the last 5 years (over $750,000). For years, the entire Peninsula community (Select Boards, School Boards, GSA-Budget Committee, and families) has asked, repeatedly, when GSA would stop requesting, or at a minimum reduce, the excess tuition. GSA always replied they needed the full amount now, but “hoped” they could stop or reduce the amount in the future. This year was no different…until Surry pushed back.

-December 8, 2025 GSA, for the sixth year, once again asked for the full $1,700 excess tuition.

-On Dec 19, the Surry Finance Committee recommended against approving all future GSA excess tuition charges for newly enrolled students beginning in 2026/7.

-On January 9th, GSA sent towns a letter saying they “reconsidered” their $1,700 request and have reduced the amount requested by 10% in “good faith”.

GSA’s website said they decided to lower the ask at their “monthly Trustees meeting” in December yet this is impossible since GSA’s December meeting was cancelled. It’s far more likely GSA, rather than acting in “good faith”, had an emergency meeting after the holidays in response to Surry potentially discontinuing paying GSA’s excess tuition charge.

November 2025 GSA Trustees meeting minutes:

In 2018, GSA first asked towns for excess tuition. They claimed that, for years, their Boarding Program, discontinued in 2023, funded programs and services for “all GSA students”. However, GSA later released accounting which showed the Program had been losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the final years…up to $8.8k per Boarding student.

It’s always been questionable if the Boarding Program accurately accounted for expenses used, but paid for by towns, such as staffing costs (salaries, benefits, etc.) and main campus costs (maintenance, insurance, operation, etc.)

In a letter to Former GSA Trustees regarding Penobscot’s vote of no confidence of GSA leadership, GSA’s Head of School claimed that “the boarding program is again in the black”. From the above GSA-produced accounting , GSA’s Boarding Program netted -$59k in 2021-2 and the previous two years were a combined -$463k.

GSA says that their school contract initiative is “community-driven” and“responds directly to feedback gathered through listening tours”. The truth is most of these events were poorly attended, and the summary from the Head of School mentions nothing about people wanting town contracts. Mostly, everyone just wanted GSA to be better.

Below is their projection for the next 5 years. When a school mentions their “survival”, it’s generally a bad sign (along with all the red).

GSA is, academically, an above average high school ranking in the lower 50% of many state categories( Niche.com).

In the last few years, GSA’s Niche.com ranking has dropped from “A-” in 2022 to “B+” in 2024 to “B” in both 2025 and 2026. Compare this to 7 other high schools Blue Hill families chose.

“Finding Schools” ranking

Standardized test scores: GSA compared to the State “average”

From GSA’s Town Contract Initiative Page:

Thirty years ago, GSA might have been the high school for “nearly all students from the seven towns”, but the 2026-7 school budgets paint a very different story:

Blue Hill – 118 total students, 74 to GSA (64%)
Surry – 60 total students, 20 to GSA (33%)
Penobscot – 39 total students, 16 to GSA (41%)
Brooksville – 26 total students, 14 to GSA (53%)

GSA Promises

Contracts require trust, but GSA hasn’t always inspired that.

In January, Head of School (HOS) Dan Welch resigned and will leave when his contract expires June 30. GSA initially announced they would not be seeking a replacement HOS with a “plan” to run GSA with a “leadership committee composed of current faculty and administration”. However, on February 9, GSA announced they would be searching for a new Head of School. (Possibly because their NEASC accreditation requires it?)

Is this confusion and mixed signals just another predictor of the future leadership of GSA?

GSA’s “Vision Goals”, announced in 2022, were a promise to towns to improve in areas such as increasing enrollment to 90% of rising 9th graders (they are at approximately 70%) and strengthening the Boarding Program (which they discontinued one year later.)

They also promised to improve the campus….

They also promised to become more financially sustainable…

In 2016, GSA commissioned two reports from an engineering firm to inspect and report on the roofs of the west wing, gymnasium, and east wing. The reports indicated issues and made repair recommendations. In 2016, GSA was in the process of renovating Hinkley House yet, even though this was one their most profitable years, no roof repairs were made to the main campus buildings.

Fast forward to 2023, and the Trustees announce that, indeed, those roof issues have gotten worse and commission yet another engineering report. Issues were noted, repairs were suggested, and the west wing was condemned and closed.

GSA Trustees issue a plan:

But there is no money for these crucial repairs, resulting in GSA announcing the closure of their east wing (and cafeteria).

Community Good Samaritans intervene, donate time and money, and provide roof repairs (for significantly less than GSA estimated). However, relying on the community to solve the school’s problems doesn’t instill confidence in the planning and leadership of GSA.

How many more Good Samaritans will GSA need to solve their future problems?

In June 2024, GSA announced extensive campus revitalizations over the next decade. They called it the Gateway Project, and Phase 1 included demolishing the condemned west wing and replacing it with a new, expensive school entry. They put a $3M price tag on the project and said construction could begin as early as summer 2025. GSA has raised less than $1M, far short of the $2.4M they said was needed to begin construction. GSA’s updated website omits any mention of the Gateway Project and, obviously, no demolition or construction occurred..

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