DIXFIELD – SAD 21’s Consolidated School Board has not selected a site for a new 300-pupil school. Five are being been looked at.

Superintendent Thomas Ward said Monday night that school district officials are still in the information-gathering stage.

A minimum of eight acres is needed for a school, parking area and septic and drainage systems.

Ward said district officials and a Portland Design Team architect have scrutinized five sites between Peru and Canton this month. None of the owners of the properties has said they were not willing to sell the property to the district for a new school, Ward said.

The next step is to compile the information and land evaluation work by DeLuca-Hoffman Associates Inc. of South Portland, which was contracted by Portland Design Team.

After the information is compiled, the sites will be ranked according to best choice. State guidelines are also to be used to determine which property the Maine Department of Education would be willing to support.

Once that information is assembled, SAD 21 school board directors are to be informed, then informational meetings are to be scheduled for the district towns of Canton, Carthage, Dixfield and Peru.

Ward said rumors that the new school was to be built near where a new bridge had been installed over the Androscoggin River in Canton are unfounded.