WALES — Residents from the three towns that comprise Regional School Unit 4 favor repairing existing schools and keeping the two primary schools in operation.
The voters from Litchfield, Sabattus and Wales made their preferences known in a nonbinding referendum at the polls Tuesday.
The majority of voters — 443 from all three towns — opted to complete $1.8 million worth of capital improvement projects through a 20-year bond and maintain the current school configuration.
Some 220 voters preferred to renovate Oak Hill High School in Wales and build an addition to either Carrie Ricker School in Litchfield or Oak Hill Middle School in Wales to accommodate pre-kindergarten through second grade.
Among the options, 311 voters — two-thirds of those from Litchfield — wanted to add onto Carrie Ricker and make it a pre-kindergarten to fifth grade school.
An additional 145 voters — 60 from Sabattus — wanted to add onto Oak Hill Middle School and convert that to pre-kindergarten to fifth grade school. Carrie Ricker would then become the middle school housing sixth through eighth grades.
And 179 voters wanted to build a separate pre-kindergarten to second grade wing at Oak Hill Middle School.
Superintendent James Hodgkin said the straw poll results were what board members and administrators had anticipated. He said the bottom line is that most voters were not willing to consider moving the youngest children out of the existing primary schools in Litchfield and Sabattus.
“I really can’t predict at this point where the board’s going to go with that information,” Hodgkin said.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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