BETHEL – Three SAD 44 teachers, each with at least 20 years experience in the district, submitted their resignations for the purpose of retirement at Monday’s board meeting.

Superintendent David Murphy said Wayne Howe and Lennie Hoy, sixth-grade teachers at Telstar Middle School, and Norma Salway, a first-grade teacher at Crescent Park Elementary School, will be leaving their classrooms at the end of the school year.

In other matters, he said the state’s curtailment of educational funding of about $161,000 has apparently been absorbed by the district. He said no positions were cut mid-way through the school year because of a spending freeze that has been in effect for several months, and a higher number of students from the unorganized townships than anticipated attending the school district.

Murphy said he foresees the 2009-10 budget, expected to be worked on later this month, to end up no higher than this year’s $10 million.

He said one bargaining unit, that of the custodians, bus drivers and food service workers, will negotiate a contract. The contract for the Telstar Educational Association, which covers the teachers and educational technicians, won’t come up until 2010.

The board also approved a class trip for fifth-grade students to Boston in late May or early June.

Each of the schools with fifth-grade classes takes part in the trip on separate dates.

Murphy said the board is taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the next step in the state-mandated consolidation process. SAD 44’s five member towns approved a merger with SAU 37 based in Rangeley last month, but SAU 37 voters did not.

He said the board is waiting to learn what steps the state Legislature will take before pursuing other potential partners.