After nearly a year of working to relocate our students to one campus at Wisdom, the board began planning for the future, determining that they want a new school for their students. It was determined by the board that a consolidated school for PreK-12 would serve the community best, especially given Wisdom's age and repair needs.
In order to build a school in Maine, a community has 2 options:
1. Fund it 100% locally.
2. Get on a Major Capital Improvement List
Given that a new school for the size needed to house PreK-12 in MSAD33 would likely run anywhere between 20 and 30 million dollars, funding it 100% locally is not an option, even after the fire insurance money is factored in. (More on this in a future post.). Therefore, the board knew that getting on the school construction list would be the only way.
The State of Maine historically releases applications for the Major Capital Improvement program (requests for new schools) about every 7 years. The last construction list put out by the Maine DOE was put out in 2017. At that time, there were 74 schools that applied. Each school is given a score based on several factors that support building a new school. See the 2017-18 list here. From those 74 schools, the state determines how many projects it can fund based on the allocation of funding they have. For 2017-18, 7 schools have been approved. See the approval list here.
Because MSAD33 was not on a list, mostly due to the fact that we were placed #1 on a separate list for the Valley Unified High School, which eventually failed, we researched Rule Chapter 61, which are the rules for building new schools in Maine. In those rules, there is a provision for Emergency Projects, which includes schools that experience school fires. See Rule Chapter 61 here.
We knew this would be the only way to get on a school construction list sooner than later.
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