Alna selectmen are defending their residency requirement to Maine Education Commissioner Robert Hasson Jr. The board on Aug. 30 reviewed a letter they sent Hasson Aug. 29, in response to his letter on state law and Alna’s policy for students’ families to prove they have long-term housing in town.

“Our residency policy is entirely consistent with the choice requirements that Alna representatives inserted in the Sheepscot Valley RSU Reorganization Plan as a condition to joining that RSU in 2008, the selectmen write to Hassan. “...The full Reorganization Plan – including this language – was approved by your predecessor (and) is every bit as binding on us, the superintendent and you as any other element of the Plan.”

The board adds at another point, “Choice and proof of true residency are interdependent halves of the whole.”

Parents in Alna choose where they send their students in kindergarten through grade 12.  Selectmen reiterated Aug. 30, they will continue to work to ensure the town isn’t paying to educate students if they don’t really live there. They named no families but discussed their ongoing look into residency claims and said they would be discussing them with Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit 12 Superintendent of Schools Howie Tuttle.

Selectmen said they would like to recover funds paid for students if they did not live in Alna. Reached Friday, Tuttle said the district has had times it worked with a school to recoup funding over a residency matter, but he didn’t recall any instances of a parent purposely misrepresenting their child’s residency, they just may not have understood something at the time.

Residency issues are not unique to the district, Tuttle added.

A Maine Department of Education spokeswoman said Friday, Alna’s response to the commissioner’s letter was under review.