Classes underway in Dover-Foxcroft district, Foxcroft Academy

CHARLESTON — Students attending the SeDoMoCha School and Foxcroft Academy are now about a week into classes for the 2026-27 academic year.

“Again it was a great day, lots of smiles and lots of hugs,” Superintendent Stacy Shorey said about the first day of school during a Sept. 1 RSU 68 School Board meeting at the Charleston Community Center. 

Pre-K enrollment through grade 8 dropped to just over 590, down from close to 640 last October. Shorey is looking into potential reasons for the decline.

Students have been attending classes for a few days and there has been great energy around the building, SeDoMoCha Principal Cameron Archer said.

An open house featured a scavenger hunt introducing this year’s One Book, One School shared family reading title “Because of the Rabbit” by Cynthia Lord. The author will be at the school on Oct. 13.

Middle school athletics are underway with the Eagle football team winning its opener 49-0 at Oceanside Middle School of Rockland.

The SeDoMoCha soccer teams were set to have the first games of 2026 two days later and field hockey and golf will open the following week.

Eighty-five students are playing sports, a bit less than a year ago but the total enrollment is also slightly down.

Twenty-plus are playing football, 16-18 are on the soccer teams and there are 13 golfers (the field hockey roster number was not mentioned).

“We did not have to make any cuts in any sports,” Archer said, despite not having B team soccer in 2026.

Cross country is not being offered this fall but the sport may return next year.

Archer and Assistant Principal Davan Walker are working with the new teachers, some brand new and some new to the district, to ensure they feel fully supported, Walker said.

Students have responded well to cell phone restrictions, Walker said, with a new state policy banning cellphones during regular school hours.

Previously students could have their devices first thing in the morning upon coming into the building prior to classes. Now phones will need to be powered down when pupils come through the doors and then will be placed in their lockers for the day.

Administrators have only needed a couple of discussions with students on the policy.

“The opening of school went well,” Foxcroft Academy Head of School Arnold Shorey said. “We’re at 394. We’re 14 shy on our boarding program.”

This enrollment may increase in an upcoming semester.

Foxcroft Academy hosted one of 26 surviving copies of the Dunlap Broadside Declaration of Independence at the Jim Robinson Field House for public viewing. The historic document was printed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, to announce American independence to the Colonies.

Earlier in the day the document, which is part of the Maine Historical Society collection and is visiting each of the state’s 16 counties for the nation’s 250th birthday, arrived on campus under police escort. The Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department and Dover-Foxcroft Police Department provided security Sept. 3-5.

Foxcroft Academy and SeDoMoCha Middle School students had the opportunity to view the Dunlap Broadside Declaration of Independence with many discussing it in class.

Walker thanked Foxcroft Academy for the opportunity. Students learned about the significance of the document as well as “museum expectations” for when they visited the field house.

Foxcroft Academy is planning a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11. Shorey said student Jon Buckingham, who is a junior firefighter, has organized the event with firefighters, police officers, EMTs and hospital workers invited.

Shorey commended Buckingham for all his efforts.

The new RSU 68 website at https://www.sedomocha.org/ is up and running, Stacy Shorey said with a few additions to be made.

“I think it looks really nice, I’m pleased,” she said.