FARMINGTON – The design and layout of a proposed new elementary school will be explained to SAD 9 voters at a straw-poll meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Mallett School gymnasium.

Architect Stephen Blatt will give a high-tech presentation to show the new school from all angles and allow viewers to “fly by and in” the proposed building, said Assistant Superintendent Susan Pratt.

Following the presentation, the Mallett School Building Committee will hold a nonbinding vote on the design. It’s a way for voters to share their views with the committee, Pratt said.

“It’s a feedback vote that is part of the process. It allows us to go back and examine parts of the school plan that people don’t like,” she said.

If the plan is approved by the state Board of Education in October, the committee can bring the proposal before voters for a late-November referendum. Officials are considering a June 2009 groundbreaking for the K-3 school to be completed by August 2010, she said.

In a straw poll on the site plan in June, voters overwhelmingly approved building the new school on the same site as the current Mallett School, built in 1930.

The state Board of Education approved the site plan last week, Blatt said.