Aging schools in Maine face critical repairs and funding challenges. Dayton Consolidated School is an example. Alternative funding solutions being explored, including a proposed school construction fund. The Governor's Commission on School Construction aims to address the issue by mid-April, 2025.
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Many aging schools in Maine need significant upgrades, with air quality, security and space concerns creating significant challenges for students and educators.
Many aging schools in Maine need significant upgrades, with air quality, security and space concerns creating significant challenges for students and educators.
As school districts across the state struggle to keep up with repairs and replacements, a new push is under way to reform how Maine funds school construction.
At Dayton Consolidated School, for instance, space is tight. For more than 30 years, the majority of students in the elementary school southwest of Portland, Maine, have been educated in portable classrooms, moving between separate buildings and braving the elements between class and lunch.
"The staff and the principal have done wonderful things to try and alleviate some of that," Superintendent Jeremy Ray told CBS affiliate WGME-TV in Portland. "But the fact of the matter is not having kids in the same school building, especially pre-K through 5, is really problematic."
Beyond space limitations, the school, built in 1950, also faces air quality concerns and other limitations related to technology.
"Just having enough power in each classroom can be a bit of a challenge, because some of the older classrooms, I believe, have [only] two outlets in them," Ray said. "The spaces that were designed 75 years ago may not quite meet 21st century learning standards and what we want for our kids and our schools."
Dayton is just one of many schools struggling with aging infrastructure.
Securing School Funds Proving More Difficult
In 2024, WGME's CBS13 I-Team survey of every school district in the state found that the average age of Maine's nearly 600 school buildings is 54 years old.
As a result, many of those buildings need major upgrades or a full replacement to meet current standards, but the current funding model to do that has not kept pace with demand.
"We're just one example of some of the need that's all over the state," Ray said.
Dayton is among 96 schools that have applied for the latest round of funding through Maine's Major Capital School Construction Program. During the last rating cycle eight years ago, Dayton ranked in the top 20, yet did not receive any funding.
Whether they rank higher this time remains uncertain.
"The state does have a very solid process for rating schools," Ray said. "We hope to rank higher."
Scott Brown, director of school facilities with the Maine Department of Education, is currently reviewing those applications.
"The ones that rise all the way to the top meet all the criteria," he said in speaking with WGME-TV. "Most of them have either heavy renovation needs or require full replacement."
But securing funding for those top projects has become increasingly difficult.
During the 2004-2005 rating cycle, 20 projects were approved. In 2010-2011, 16 projects were able to move forward, and during the last rating cycle in 2017-2018, only nine made it to the approved projects list, the Portland news outlet reported.
It is something state leaders believe is due to an increased need and increased costs.
When CBS13 I-Team Reporter Dan Lampariello interviewed Brown recently, Lampariello noted the small number of schools selected for the Major Capital School Construction Program during the last cycle and asked, "Do you expect it to be any more or any less this cycle?"
"It all depends, Dan, on the Governor's Commission [on School Construction] and maybe the size of those schools," Brown said. "One very large high school could take up a lot of money, so you can build fewer schools, so we don't know. But I'm pretty optimistic that we'll be able to work through it and address those high-need schools."
The commission, launched last fall, is studying Maine's school construction funding model for the first time in 25 years. Currently, the program relies on state-issued bonds, but legislative limits on debt tend to create constraints.
"There are so many financial challenges in Augusta, but this certainly needs to be recognized as one of them," he told Lampariello.
Other School Funding Options Being Explored
As lawmakers await the commission's report, state Rep. Michael Brennan has introduced legislation proposing an alternative funding approach. His plan would use revenue from certain taxes, including lodging, cigarette, cannabis and gambling to create a school construction fund allowing projects to be paid for with cash instead of bonds.
"The savings on interest would be enormous," he said. "We could double, even quadruple the number of schools we're doing now."
Brennan also believes state officials should rethink how many of these projects they should help finance.
"We're one of only a handful of states in the country that provide 100 percent financing for schools, so I think we need to go to a cost-sharing model," he said.
In addition to funding, discussions around school consolidation also may become part of the conversation.
A new study from the Maine Education Policy Research Institute found school enrollment in the state declined 20 percent from 1991 to 2020, leaving Maine with one of the lowest student-to-school ratios in the country.
"Our biggest single problem is we have too many buildings and too few students," according to Brennan.
But for communities like Dayton, closing or consolidating is not an option right now.
"[Our school is] really part of the identity of the town," Ray said. "I think we're really at a crossroads for what we do in funding school construction."
The Governor's Commission on School Construction is expected to submit its report to the state Legislature by mid-April, 2025, WGME-TV noted.
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