DIXFIELD – With only five months remaining until the SAD 21 board disbands, the board agreed Monday night to hold one meeting each month.

The district is part of the newly created Western Foothills School District, and members for that new governing board will be elected Thursday.

Superintendent Tom Ward said the district will still have to conduct some business during the next few months, and if a second meeting is required some month, it will be called. Starting in February, the board will meet the second Monday of each month in the superintendent’s conference room of the former elementary school.

The newly created district, also known as Regional School Unit 10, will officially take over the governing reins of SAD 21, SAD 39 in Buckfield, SAD 43 in Rumford, and the unaffiliated town of Hanover on July 1.

Once the new board is elected, it will meet to choose a superintendent and get organized. The tentative date for the first meeting is Feb. 3.

Ward said the new school board will develop the budget for the new district.

It will be a very strong board, he said, because the vast majority of the 17 members are currently on their individual school boards, or served on the planning committee to create the Western Foothills School District.

He said a celebration of the end of SAD 21 and the beginning of RSU 10 will be held during the SAD 21 board’s last meeting in June.

During the past few weeks, curriculum coordinators, special education directors, transportation and maintenance directors, principals, technology directors and food service coordinators from each of the three sending districts have been meeting. They plan to hold an all-day session on Tuesday to work out more details to apply to the new district.

“How often do you get an opportunity to create a school district?” Ward asked board members.

Ward plans to apply for the superintendency of the merged district. The new governing board will decide whether to hire from within or go outside in the search for its superintendent.

Ward also told the board Monday that he was one of only two superintendents from the state to be chosen by the Maine Superintendents’ Association to attend the conference of the National Association of Administrators next month in San Francisco. The second superintendent heads the Hampden School District.

In other matters, the board approved presentations by staff from the Rape Education and Crisis Hotline to all pupils from kindergarten through grade seven.

Director Debbie Demski, whose office is based in South Paris, said staff educators will make two 45-minute presentations to each grade beginning in late January.

She said presentations will be made in an age appropriate fashion, and parents will be notified prior to the beginning of the program.

Ward said the material to be presented by the organization’s staff goes well with the material presented by representatives from the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project that go into middle and high school classrooms.

Dirigo High School Principal Michael Poulin announced that the annual Diversity Day is Jan. 26. More than 20 people presenting topics ranging from recycling and the history of the underground railroad in Maine, to religious and gender differences will offer information to students during the day-long event.

Parents will soon receive a list of presenters.

Poulin said Auburn Mayor John Jenkins will provide the keynote address.