RUMFORD – The SAD 43 board voted Monday to readmit a middle school student who was expelled in February 2007.

The boy, who was an eighth-grader at the time, will not be returning to the SAD 43 school district, however.

Superintendent Jim Hodgkin said the state Department of Education had requested that the board readmit the boy so he can attend school elsewhere. Hodgkin said he doesn’t know what grade or what school the boy will be entering when he begins classes at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year.

He was expelled for assaulting a member of the Mountain Valley Middle School staff.

Also on Monday, a special board meeting was set for June 9 for the board to discuss and review the plan approved by the Reorganizational Planning Committee for the administrative merger of SAD 21, SAD 43 and SAD 39. That plan, in the works by representatives from the three school districts for more than six months, must be submitted to the state Department of Education by June 13 for review and approval.

In other matters, the district was honored by the state for its nutritional services under the Coordinated School Health Program. SAD 43 representatives will receive an exemplary level award, which is the highest a school can achieve, and $2,000, at 1 p.m. at the Hall of Flags in the State House in Augusta on May 28.

At 10 a.m. on May 29, SAD 43 high school alternative education teacher Steve McGinty will be honored by the state’s Drop Out Prevention Committee for his work with students. That ceremony will take place at the Blaine House in Augusta. McGinty will be leaving his alternative education position at the end of this school year, then start the upcoming school year as a high school art teacher.

The board also signed the warrant for the upcoming 2008-2009 budget vote. Residents of the district’s four member towns will vote on the proposed $15.5 million budget at a town meeting-style election on June 5 in the Muskie Auditorium of Mountain Valley High School. They will then validate the final budget figure in their individual towns by referendum on June 10.

A public information meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on June 3, also at the high school auditorium.

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