Discussion about local control was cut short last year, House Speaker Glenn Cummings said in an interview before the New Year’s holiday, because the school law was attached to the state budget.

“There was never a full-blown debate simply on school consolidation,” on the House floor, Rep. Cummings said. “It tended to be overshadowed.”

That debate starts Friday, when legislators have been invited to present their proposed amendments to the school consolidation law at a daylong hearing before the Education Committee.

“There will be a wide variety of amendments, all the way to complete repeal of the law to very technical issues,” he said.

What is promising to be one of the more contentious issues is whether some cities and towns will be able to keep their local school committees to oversee their K-8 systems while sharing governance of a high school through a regional school board.

That proposed form of governance has been dubbed a “super union” because it essentially builds on the union structure currently in place in parts of the state, but creates a larger district. Super unions, like unions already in existence, would share a superintendent and central office functions.

Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron said she will not accept a super union because it cedes too much authority to the local school committee and does not encourage enough administrative efficiencies.

Ms. Gendron rejected a proposal from Mount Desert Island (MDI) towns to use the super union model in its regionalization plan, putting House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a North Haven Democrat, in the middle of the fight because she represents part of the district involved. Rep. Pingree has promised to fight for MDI’s plan.

Senate Majority Leader Libby Mitchell, chairman of the Education Committee, has long supported the union form of governance because she has a large union in her district and believes it is working.

“My initial thoughts here are everything is worth considering as long as it meets the goals of less administration, savings and better education for our kids,” Sen. Mitchell said. Allowing some communities to hold on to their local school boards also could make school consolidation plans more palatable to voters, who ultimately must approve the plans.

“We have to create a product that is accepted by the community,” she said, and unions are attractive, particularly in rural areas.

Under the school consolidation law passed in 2007, existing districts are required to submit plans to show how they could come together to form no more than 80 districts statewide. Those districts would have at least 2,500 students, where possible, but no fewer than 1,200 each. They would be run by a regional school board and required to find costs savings in school administration, transportation, special education and maintenance.

The law does allow for the creation of local school committees, with their duties and powers determined by the regional board, but the language is admittedly vague.

Ms. Gendron said the law does not allow local committees with control over their K-8 school budgets and operations. “It was not the intent of the law to allow local school committees to usurp the authority of the RSU (regional school unit) boards themselves,” she wrote in rejecting Mount Desert Island’s plan.

While Mount Desert was the only district to propose a super union in its plans submitted to the department last month, Ms. Gendron said other districts are waiting to see what happens.

In an interview before Christmas, Ms. Gendron vowed to “absolutely oppose” super unions when the debate begins.

Three Republican House members on the Education Committee have assured that debate will happen by attaching an amendment to allow super unions to a Department of Education bill. That bill is designed to address fiscal issues preventing consolidation, and Ms. Gendron wants it to go through without amendments and with a two-thirds vote so it can be implemented immediately.

Former state Rep. Stephen Bowen of Rockport, who now works for the Maine Heritage Policy Center, helped write the amendment and said the debate will make the school consolidation law better.

Mr. Bowen, like Sen. Mitchell, said super unions could be an option for those districts that don’t want to be governed by a single regional school board.

“Let’s not go backwards,” he said, in terms of the work that already has gone into creating regional school units. “I think it’s imperative that we don’t make all of that work for nothing.”

Rather, he said, a super union would be “an option” that would be held to the same requirements to find costs savings and administrative efficiencies as full-blown regional school units.

Sen. Mitchell said her preference is to allow the department’s bill to go forward without amendment, and have the union discussion as part of a secondary package proposed by legislators.

The public hearing on legislative amendments begins at 9 a.m., on Friday, Jan. 4, in room 202 in the Cross Office Building, next to the Statehouse.