RUMFORD – A committee with a goal of finding options for funding some extra-curricular activities set its first meeting for Wednesday night at Mountain Valley High School.

The Student Program Committee, which is part of the SAD 43 board, will be chaired by Mexico representative Chris Brennick and include middle and high school administrators. The committee will decide on Wednesday whether to include members of the public or others.

The need for the committee was prompted by disagreement over whether to fund a couple of junior varsity sports programs at the middle school. SAD 43, along with most other school districts, is facing the probability of flat funding from the state for at least the next two years.

“We want to see what the possibilities are,” said SAD 43 Chairwoman Linda Westleigh on Tuesday.

In other matters at Monday’s meeting, the board learned that 23 students, including four from SAD 21 in Dixfield, and two from the Jay School District, are enrolled at the Pennacook Learning Center. That school, which was once Virginia Elementary School, serves youngsters with special needs.

This is the first year the Jay school system has sent students to the SAD 43 program, said Superintendent Jim Hodgkin.

Also, the board learned of the resignation of Byron representative Anne Simmons-Edmunds. She served for at least six years. She resigned because she was recently elected as one of her town’s three selectmen. State law prohibits people from simultaneously serving as a selectman and school board member.

The board also went behind closed doors to receive an update from Hodgkin on two students who were arrested in early October for breaking into the Pennacook Learning Center and taking a laptop computer, which was later recovered.

According to the police log, the boys were age 13 and 16.

Hodgkin said they were not expelled. He declined to provide further details.