RSU 39’s school board gathered for their first meeting of the new year at the Caribou Learning Center and saw Superintendent Susan White acting as interim chairman, only for a few minutes, before board members unanimously elected this year’s chairman John Sjostedt and vice chair Kent Forbes. The new year also brought new board members, Jan Umphrey-Tompkins and Ron Willey.
Board members quickly moved on to organizing their positions for 2015’s finance committee, district wellness committee, Caribou High School scholarship finance committee, policy committee, and named Forbes as its Presque Isle Regional Technology Center representative.
Superintendent White informed the board of RSU 39’s most recent resignations:
Limestone Community School’s varsity softball coach Andrew Kirby, Caribou Middle School’s cheerleading coach Tracy Corbin, and finally longtime guidance counselor for Caribou High School Martin “Marty” Gallant. White remarked that Gallant had served a long and illustrious career.
Discussion of the U.S. Department of Education’s $75,000 ‘Gear Up’ grant, awarded to RSU 39, followed during the superintendent’s report. This grant not only means significant money for the school district, but its primary goal is to provide students with early awareness and readiness for post-secondary opportunities.
“This grant program looks at underserved students and prepares them for undergraduate work, ultimately getting them to college and realizing what’s out there, not just which colleges, but what you have to do to get there,” White explained.
White, along with a committee, will find out more on how the school district plans on spending the grant money over the next seven years after the program’s kick-off event on Tuesday, Feb. 3 at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
An update on RSU 39’s exciting capital improvement project is, according to White, “at a fun stage right now,” the project’s committee met on Jan. 7 to sort through seven architect firms, resulting in a decision on a final four.
“We’re still figuring out what that project could be. We’re going to hire an architect, who’s going to evaluate [RSU 39’s] buildings and develop a concept. It could be a renovation, it could even be a new school, we don’t know,” White said.
Coincidentally the committee discovered Mainebiz magazine ranked the firms the school district is considering, among the top five to work with in the state, based on their income and ties to big projects.
Before the board adjourned for the evening White announced the former Sincock School is currently being “pickled.” After the building’s boiler system was deemed too hard to keep up, a common practice of adding red antifreeze to existing plumbing system, including the boiler began. Facilities and Transportation Director Wayne St. Pierre, along with a crew, is heading up the shut down of the former school and more recently superintendent’s office.
The next meeting of the RSU 39 school board is slated for Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 7 p.m. in Room 1 of the Caribou Learning Center on Bennett Drive.
