RSU 22 pauses proposed consolidation of students by grade level

Transportation challenges mean students will not be consolidated by grades in “the near future” at Hampden-based Regional School Unit 22.

The district was considering changes to where children in Hampden, Winterport, Frankfort and Newburgh attend school after a 2021 equity audit that found disparities and inequities in resources and facilities, especially between the two middle schools. It also found that the way the district is now structured results in differences in test scores and class sizes, the district said previously.

However there were too many challenges around transporting children in K-8 that the proposed scenarios were “unfeasible,” Superintendent Nicholas Raymond and board chair Heath Miller announced in a letter Tuesday . Cyr Bus presented transportation schedules during an April 10 meeting of the restructuring committee, which decided those scenarios would not work.

With any potential changes paused, the restructuring committee will meet and determine what next steps will be, the letter said.

The district held a final community meeting March 26, where it presented the three scenarios to around 200 community members. People had an opportunity to submit written questions the district said would be answered online, but those will now not be posted since the project is paused, Raymond and Miller said.

In the first scenario, students in prekindergarten through fifth grade would have stayed at the same buildings. Students in sixth grade would have attended Samuel L. Wagner Middle School in Winterport while seventh and eighth graders would have attended Reeds Brook Middle School in Hampden.

The second scenario had students in pre-K to second grade staying at Earl C. McGraw School in Hampden and Leroy H. Smith School in Winterport, while third and fourth graders would have attended Wagner school in Winterport. Fifth and sixth grade students would have attended George B. Weatherbee School in Hampden. Grades seven and eight would have been at Reeds Brook, as in scenario one

In the third scenario, students in pre-K and kindergarten would have attended the McGraw school in Hampden, and pre-K through the Waldo Community Action Partners would stay at the Smith school. First and second grade students would have also attended the Smith school.

The Wagner school would have had third and fourth graders, while fifth and sixth graders would have been at the Weatherbee school. Grades seven and eight would have been at Reeds Brook.