School starts in SAD 41

MILO — SAD 41 schools opened for the start of 2021-22 classes on Wednesday, Sept. 1 — prekindergarten will begin Tuesday, Sept. 7 at Milo Elementary — with a fall return plan in place.

During a Sept. 1 school board meeting at the Penquis Valley School, Superintendent Michael Wright said several weeks ago district officials thought they would be in a different place than they are now, before the rise in COVID-19 cases. 

Several weeks prior the directors approved a plan, which can be adjusted as the school year progresses, with in-person learning for all five days a week, mask wearing indoors by students and staff depending on community transmission rates, and many other components. 

There is a new color code system in place for community transmissions. This is made up of blue for low, yellow for moderate, orange for substantial and red for high, with the colors potentially changing on at least a week by week basis

Under the fall return plan, which will also be in place for the other AOS 43 school district SAD 31 of Howland, masks would be worn in the buildings. This could be looked at again at the Oct. 6 school board meeting if case numbers in Piscataquis County decrease.

Masks are not required outside, but will need to be worn to ride on all school transportation per U.S. CDC regulations.

The fall return plan is posted at www.msad41.us.

Wright said the Maine Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services are requiring schools to report the percentage of staff members who have been vaccinated. “We’ll put something out soon about that,” he said, with staff indicating their status through an anonymous survey.

Penquis Valley Middle School Principal Tina Dumond said the first day of school went very well, calling it the best opening day of her 22-year career. “I think I only had to remind a couple of kids,” she said, when their masks slipped down on their faces.

“It is with great excitement we welcome back all students and staff to in-person learning on Sept. 1,” Penquis Valley High School Principal Michael Rollins wrote in his board report. “While many of the safety precautions we had in place last year [mask wearing, social distancing, etc.] are still in place, I strongly feel having all students and staff back in our buildings will have a positive impact on our students’, both academically and mentally.”

In other business, Board Chairperson Roberta Trefts said she recently attended the latest planning meeting on the proposed $100 million regional comprehensive high school between SAD 41, SAD 46 of Dexter, the Guilford-based SAD 4, and potentially RSU 64 of Corinth. 

The secondary institution would offer a number of vocational programs, trainings, and certifications in various industries via a number of business partnerships and college courses in addition to core subjects, and would provide more opportunities than are currently available at individual high schools, according to area school district administrators involved in the project. Similar education models are used in other states, including Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Trefts said the governance and administration setups need to be in place before the state will work with the local group on the search for potential school sites. An engineer will help determine the ideal location. To qualify, the site needs a certain amount of acreage and would have access to 3-phase power and municipal water and sewer to help avoid additional project expenses for extending to these utilities.

She said those involved — representatives of the participating project school districts who have been meeting regularly — have talked about having a “one vote, one person” setup for governance, rather than the directors of the school having weighted votes based on their town/district population.

Individual school districts would retain their own boards, but the high school board would operate in a manner similar to the directors of the Tri-County Technical Center in Dexter.

 The secondary institution governance could also be set up like an RSU, and each of the existing school districts would remain to oversee the individual pre-K to grade 8 education systems. 

“That is not even finished so we can’t begin to select a site which is a big stickler,” Trefts said. 

She said the drive from her home in LaGrange to Guilford seemed quite long and with RSU 64 in the picture the comprehensive high school would serve a very large area.

“The school itself would be an incredible opportunity for our students,” she said.

The next planning meeting is scheduled to be held in Milo, and it would be open to the public. “When we find out more about the date we would put it out there so everybody knows,” Wright said. 

In the future there will be straw votes on the comprehensive high school and there are plans to involve the towns as the project concept is brought to the communities.

The comprehensive high school project still needs to go through a number of steps over multiple years to come to fruition including formal votes of residents in member districts.