BY BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer
Voters in Litchfield, Sabattus and Wales are being asked to help the school board decide what to do with the two aging primary schools in Regional School Unit 4.
While residents of those towns vote on a nonbinding referendum at the polls June 12, the district is offering two forums — today and Thursday — during which people can ask questions about the issue.
The forums are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. today at Carrie Ricker School in Litchfield and Thursday at Oak Hill Middle School in Sabattus.
In late April the school board and administrators sent a letter to voters describing a need to make capital improvements at several buildings in the district, including Oak Hill High School, as well as Litchfield’s Libby-Tozier School and Sabattus Primary School.
“We understand that a lot of information was sent out and people have a lot of questions,” Superintendent James Hodgkin said Tuesday. “There will not be much of a presentation. This is really an opportunity for people to ask us questions and get clarification.”
The school board wants the voters to indicate which choices they prefer. Options include doing the maintenance needed or building an addition onto either Carrie Ricker or Oak Hill Middle schools and closing the two primary schools, which house students from pre-kindergarten through second-graders.
All the options note that a five-year maintenance plan for the schools totals $1.8 million, and that Oak Hill High School in Wales needs about $660,000 in work that needs to be done.
Voters will be asked whether they prefer to bond that $1.8 million in maintenance costs over 20 years, paying $132,00 per year; or bond $7 million for 20 years for an addition, paying $166,000 per year, once savings are realized from closing the two primary schools.
If voters opt to build an addition, then they are asked to select from among three options:
* build at Carrie Ricker School so it becomes a pre-kindergarten-to-grade 5 school;
* build at Oak Hill Middle School so it becomes a pre-kindergarten-to-grade 5 school and convert Carrie Ricker to a grades six-through-eight middle school; or
* build a separate wing at Oak Hill Middle School to house pre-kindergarten-through-grade 2 students.
Results of the nonbinding vote will help the school board members decide how to move forward, Hodgkin said.
The key question is whether to renovate or build new.
“I don’t think there’s an option to do nothing,” Hodgkin said. “That’s what’s been done for the past five to 10 years.”
The district closed Wales Center School at the end of last year despite efforts by a number of people in Wales to keep the school open. Hodgkin said the district’s elementary schools are more than 50 years old.
Carrie Ricker School, which houses grades 3 to 5, opened in 1997. Oak Hill Middle School, which has grades 6 to 8, opened in 2006.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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