Education

School choice for students in the unorganized territories (UT), education funding, the drug epidemic, Maine's citizen initiative process and tribal-state relations are all targeted in proposed legislation that has been put in the hopper by Washington County legislators.

The controversy that erupted last spring about where students living in area unorganized territories (UT) attend elementary school has been relatively quiet since the new school year began, but it's expected to heat up again once the legislature goes into session in January.

Some Grand Manan students had a difficult start to the school year with a reduction of school buses from four to three. Parents and students have reported confusion with schedules and overcrowding on buses, and the Anglophone South School District is working to address the problem.

The MSAD 19 board of directors, during their September 20 meeting, discussed alterations to Lubec school bus schedules to address the issue of high school students returning home after 4 p.m. The issue was brought up by AOS 77 Superintendent Kenneth Johnson as an additional agenda item not listed

Progress is continuing with the plans for a new school building at Sipayik, with the tearing down of the Passamaquoddy tribal government office building that will be the site for the new school. The building was torn down by Thomas DiCenzo Inc.

What started out as a competition between teams of students to build the most powerful computer evolved into an exploration at the frontier of molecular science. The students of Jon Bragdon's computer science class at St.