RUMFORD – Two teaching positions at Mountain Valley High School will be cut due to declining enrollment, officials said in presenting a preliminary 2009-10 budget for SAD 43.

Principal Matt Gilbert presented the SAD 43 board and staff members with the information at a special workshop meeting. He said enrollment for the next school year is expected to fall to about 497, down from 533 in grades nine to 12 this year.

Slots for one science teacher and another in industrial arts/technology will be cut, he said. The industrial arts teacher is retiring this year and the science teacher was hired for just one year, he explained.

The high school will also go from two full-time guidance counselors to 1.4. The remaining .6 position will be assigned to Mountain Valley Middle School, which had lost guidance services last year.

SAD 43 voters approved a $15.4 million budget for this school year.

Superintendent Jim Hodgkin said it was difficult to devise a comparable district budget without knowing the amount of revenues to be received.

Hodgkin said the anticipated $196,000 restored to the district through the federal stimulus package must be spent before the first of July when the new district, comprised of SADs 43, 21 and 39, becomes an official school system.

He recommended that the funds be used to refurbish high school bleachers, to install new air exchangers at the middle school, and to replace non-code compliant windows at Pennacook Learning Center. Any money left will be used for roof repairs.

The board will act on those recommendations at its regularly scheduled April 6 meeting.