Sunday’s installment of Berkeley Breathed’s “Opus” comic raised a red flag for some newspapers.

School consolidation is back in the news this week.

Friday’s the deadline for school districts to file their preliminary merger plans with the state Department of Education. This will be the public’s first chance to see how the reorganization – designed to reduce the number of school districts from 290 to about 80 – is shaping up from a statewide perspective.

We have two stories in the works this week about the topic. The first, by our education reporter, Beth Quimby, will explore those districts that have yet to find a potential partner. This story will run either Wednesday or Thursday. The second story, by our statehouse reporter, Paul Carrier, will provide an overview of all the plans filed with the state. That story will run in Saturday’s paper.

The consolidation will be a major topic of coverage for us this fall, as the districts get down to the finer points of the mergers.

We’re making some changes on one of our prime reporting beats, the courts.

For the past six years our court reporter has been Greg Kesich. An award-winning journalist, Greg has written, or contributed to, just about every major story we’ve covered since the start of the decade. This includes - but is not limited to - clergy sex abuse, allegations of abuse at the Portland Police Department and the Newry quadruple homicide.

Greg has been promoted to editorial writer, and his new assignment begins Monday. He’s sharp, intelligent and witty, and readers of the opinion pages are going to enjoy his commentaries. I’m going to miss having him on the city staff because besides being a top-notch journalist with great story ideas, he’s fun to work with.

To replace him, we’re promoting Trevor Maxwell to the courts beat. Trevor joined the newspaper in early 2005 as our night cops reporter, where he distinguished himself covering the murder of a 14-year-old Fayette girl by her classmate. He moved to the metro desk last summer to cover South Portland, Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough.

Trevor (along with Greg) was a member of the Press Herald reporting team that won the Society of Professional Journalists’ national Sigma Delta Chi award for their coverage of the Newry homicides. He’s a strong writer and enterprising reporter, so readers should expect to see many of his stories about Maine courts and the legal system on the front page. You can e-mail him tips at tmaxwell@pressherald.com.

I’d like to address an issue raised by some of our online readers about today’s story, “Watchdog Wilson.” The story was the centerpiece on Page A1 of the Press Herald and was the first story on pressherald.com this morning.

Well, for the second time this summer we’ve got a sitting president meeting with another head of state at Kennebunkport.

I'm back from vacation and trying to sort through the backlog of phone messages, e-mails, story ideas and coverage plans that build up when you're away for two weeks.