By Kenneth Roberts,Special to the Sun Journal

TURNER – SAD 52 directors are investigating possible financial problems with the district’s former day-care program in the Turner Primary School.

After an executive session Thursday night at Leeds Central School, the board issued a written statement saying it has undertaken an audit and review of the former Step by Step Child Care program.

The school board also has hired Auburn accountant Bruce Nadeau who will report his findings to Superintendent Thomas Hanson and the Board of Directors, which will “take all appropriate actions,” according to the release.

School officials declined to comment beyond the written statement, which said they would provide further information “at the appropriate times when it becomes available.”

The statement added that directors had been concerned for some time about the financial condition of the district’s former day care program, which the board initially voted to close, effective June 30 of this year.

That vote came at the board’s Dec. 16, 2004, meeting after a special meeting to hear from administrators and parents who used the facility. Then, at a meeting in March, directors voted to postpone closure to Sept. 30.

In December, the program had 61 children. It served youngsters from 6-weeks-old and up, according to the SAD 52 handbook for last year, which is on the district’s Web site.

When the school board voted to dissolve the program, Hanson said it was not based on quality issues but because of a lack of fairness to students. During the Dec. 2, 2004, special meeting, Hanson raised concerns that Step by Step wasn’t available to all three towns served by SAD 52, according to the meeting’s minutes on the same Web site. There was some discussion at the meeting about whether it could be expanded to the other two towns, Greene and Leeds.

Home Plate Activity Center, a new, private, for-profit day-care and preschool has opened in the Village Center next to the Common and has absorbed the children from Step-by-Step. The transition went off as scheduled on Oct. 3.

Other business:

• Directors approved Hanson’s request to meet with Town Manager James Catlin, and perhaps with the selectmen, to discuss the possibility of joining the town in building and using a new town office building.

• Business Manager Christopher Trenholm said that he is working with officials of Leeds, Greene and Turner to set up a meeting to discuss joint purchasing. He noted that with the skyrocketing costs of heating fuels, diesel and other items, joint purchasing by the towns and the school district might result in significant savings.

• Two key staff members of the Leavitt Area High School student newspaper, The Buzz, will join their faculty adviser in attending the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s 66th Annual Fall Conference on Nov. 7 at Columbia University in New York City.

Adviser Bethany Dorian and staffers Jenn Berry and Jeff Beam will join others from student papers and magazines throughout the Eastern United States at workshops designed to help improve the quality of the student press.

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