Not an us vs. them effort

To the Editor:

First , I want to say , that I have many friends and acquaintances throughout the SAD 44 area as do all Andover folks. So the fact that Andover wishes to leave SAD 44 is not an us vs. them effort.

The people of Andover feel that we must keep our school open for the town to be a viable functioning community, It is upsetting to our citizens to be left up in the air year to year not knowing if the school will continue. Therefore the town voted by an overwhelming majority to proceed with preparations to leave the district and form our own school unit. There will be one more vote.

Many people have gathered and studied information for the last two years to learn what this entails. The withdrawal committee has hired two retired school superintendents as consultants and has also two attorneys who live here part time volunteer many hours to help with the work, with a paid attorney also--from a firm well-acquainted with school law -- to review major matters as a "second opinion" source for them and the committee.

In addition there are numerous individuals, from all walks of life ,who also have worked many hours in this endeavor.

At this time, with much of its homework done, the withdrawal committee feels ready to sit down with the SAD 44 committee to negotiate an agreement.

The sooner this is accomplished the better for both sides. That way SAD 44 and Andover can turn their attention to educating our children, which is what this is all about !

Leon Akers,

Andover