Amid some of their and others' concerns, Wiscasset school committee members Jan. 14 agreed to apply to the state to serve children younger than the schools' youngest students. The unanimous vote came after Superintendent of Schools Kim Andersson said applying does not commit Wiscasset to taking part.

Within a few years, Andersson expects the state to transition to having schools serve that age group she said has been the purview of Child Development Services. Maine Department of Education is taking applications from school districts to take part sooner, in "Cohort 2"; Andersson said it would be 100% state funded, prior to each quarter.

"We move forward, we can always pull back," member Jonathan Barnes said in support of applying. "We all have a heart for kids. We want to help all the kids we can, but if we can't feasibly do it, then we can say, 'Hey, we've done our research, we can't do it.'"

If Wiscasset gets approved, the committee could still decline to have her sign the state's memo of understanding, Andersson said. Applying is "throwing your hat in the ring," she said.

Member Tracey Whitney said she believes very strongly in early education. "I think that we catch these things early so that we're not developing (Individual Educational Programs) IEPs when they're in second and third grade and some of these behaviors are beyond control ... But I also don't want to be setting us up for (being) locked into something that we then can't provide," for lack of staff certified to work with the children it would serve, Whitney said.

Can the school department handle the increased demand this would put on speech services, member Jodi Hardwick asked.

Responding, Special Services Director Andrea Lovell voiced concern the department will have the same issue the state has had in meeting needs: "There are only a certain number of service providers and teachers ... I don't know how much wiggle room there is. So I think the questions that you're asking are really valid (and) need to be worked through. I do get concerned about our resources. And yet (the changes are) coming down and the kids need to have their services. Are we ready to provide that? We don't have the certifications currently on my special ed team to serve that population at this time."

Adding six or seven children ages 3 and 4 would be "a lot ... They're babies," Lovell said. "They don't need the same kind of programming instruction that you get even in kindergarten. So this would be a huge learning curve for us."

Wiscasset's Ed Polewarczyk listened to many hours of testimony on the topic when he was in the legislature. He told the school committee the cohorts are an experimental program stemming from there being too few people in Maine trained to meet the needs. "There's an opportunity to make changes to it. There's an opportunity to say this has failed. A lot can go on between then. I recommend you stay away until we have learned all this stuff ... And then be a part of a real program, should it come about in 2028."