NEW GLOUCESTER – A bomb scare at Gray-New Gloucester High School on Wednesday remains under investigation, Superintendent Virginia Burns told the school board Wednesday night. No device was found.

Superintendent Burns said the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department and High School Principal Paul Penna are investigating the threat that affected roughly 600 students who were moved to the nearby middle school.

Students were out of the building from 9 to 11 a.m. and will have to make up the academic time missed, Burns said.

Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department and the Gray Fire and Rescue were notified immediately, said Superintendent Burns, and the Sheriff’s Department responded with a bomb-sniffing dog.

“The Gray Fire Department was notified but didn’t come,” she said.

“There were a few glitches,” Burns said. Students vacated the sprawling building and walked to nearby Gray-New Gloucester Middle School’s cafetorium that was occupied, and the room became uncomfortably warm.

Also, said Burns, traffic along the Libby Hill Road was not blocked to public access until 10:15 a.m.

Students returned to classes after the building was deemed safe, and Maine’s Department of Education was notified that students missed two hours of classes.

In other business, the district’s two Century 21 grants for after-school after -academic and support programs are proving successful for students participating.

Jacinda Cotton-Castro of Fiddlehead Center for the Arts and Theresa Allocca of Gray-New Gloucester Middle School talked about student progress in the program that brings together the community resources of the YMCA at Pineland, Pineland Farms, Fiddlehead Center for the Arts and SAD 15.

“The data coming out is amazing,” said Cotton-Castro.

Of 217 middle school students participating in the fourth year of the after-school program, 78 percent have increased scores by a half grade level or stayed the same in mathematics. And, 81 percent of students show improvement or stayed the same with an increase of scores by 22 percent in language arts.

At Dunn Elementary School 95 students are enrolled in the third year of the grant program. Fifty-one students are demonstrating improvement in math and 52 in language arts.

The programs are in the third and fourth years of the five-year grant.

Cotton-Castro said an Advisory Council being formed needs a board member to join in an effort to sustain momentum for after-school opportunities once the grant expires. Other sources of funding are being sought, too.

Fiddlehead Center for the Arts serves children and adults, and is currently on the Pineland campus but will be purchasing their own building in downtown Gray.

“We chose Gray to work with the Gray-New Gloucester schools and wrap our arms around the children,” Castro-Cotton said.