NEW GLOUCESTER – A new consolidation plan that went into effect last month for all SAD 15 elementary students has school officials still ironing out wrinkles, the school board learned Wednesday.

Most of the issues deal with transportation schedules, academic time, before- and after-school supervision and a new kindergarten lunch program.

The plan, adopted by the board last spring, was a compromise to closing one of the district’s three elementary schools. Now students in kindergarten through grade two attend either Memorial School in New Gloucester or Russell School in Gray. And, the district’s students in grades three through five attend Dunn School in New Gloucester.

Russell School Principal Ellen Beale said, “There are always wrinkles at the start of the school year, but here we had wrinkles over wrinkles.”

School officials have been grappling with getting students to school on time, having adequate supervision with students who arrive early and stay late, and the impact of a kindergarten lunch program initiative this year.

The reorganization plan requires buying five more buses if students were transported only to Dunn School rather than consolidate the rides to two schools.

Except for one family, all students are on the school bus no longer than 60 minutes, said Beale. Roughly 80 percent of students in kindergarten through grade 2 ride an average of up to 25 minutes to school. But, 61 kindergarten through grade two students arrive 30 minutes before school starts and leave 25 minutes after others.

Efforts are under way to work out solutions to the problems that emerged, said Beale.

Extra staff has been recruited to supervise the students.

A new lunch program initiative for kindergarten students had “unintended consequences of something new,” said Beale. Menus have been modified for kindergarten students who must complete the meal within 30 minutes. Instead a snack time has been eliminated so academic time is longer.

New Gloucester board member Carmel Morin said he wants to see by the end of the first quarter a comparison of costs between the consolidation plan and keeping three elementary schools intact for students in kindergarten through grade five.

In other business, the board discussed the upcoming Maine Educational Assessment test scores.

Karen Caprio, interim director of Teaching and Learning, said preliminary information demonstrated some difficulties for a subgroup category of 62 percent of special education students who took the test but failed to make adequate daily progress. The test score collects data and scores are impacted by the number of students without an Internet connection at home.

Caprio said 93 percent of high school students took the test, and that the state goal of 95 percent was not met. More information will be sought to find alternative forms of testing for special education students.

The board learned the MEA test is changing this year to include only reading, writing, math and science and technology. Health, social studies and visual and performing arts have been dropped from the test.

“The MEA is the Mount Everest of data,” said New Gloucester board member Alan Rich. “We can get crushed and lose the forest from the trees.”

The board will begin discussions on the results in an upcoming meeting.