The school districts for Maranacook and Winthrop high schools, and the town of Fayette, are merging and talking about merging, in light of the still-in-effect state law mandating school consolidation.

This month's newsletter to residents in these "three" districts was interesting in itself. The 16-page newsletter, itself, was consolidated.

Winthrop's regular newsletter is called "Ramblings," a reference to that school's Ramblers team name and mascot. Maranacook's newsletter is called Chalkboard.

This month, the districts published "Ramblin' Chalkboard" and dedicated it to school consolidation.

The newsletter had Winthrop's green-and-white colors, a cover article by Maranacook Superintendent Rich Abramson, and articles about most every school Fayette, Manchester, Mount Vernon, Readfield and Winthrop. (The only one I didn't see was Winthrop Grade School.)

It included a lot of data about the towns and districts too, from SAT-test results to enrollment to names and contact info for 32 people on the Regional School Unit 30 Regional Planning Committee.

Another thing I noticed: While Abramson and Fayette Superintendent Briane Coulthard had articles, the Winthrop superintendent did not.

Maranacook and Winthrop share something else these days: state championship boys basketball teams (Maranacook in Class B; Winthrop in Class C). Nice going.