PARIS — The SAD 17 board of directors has voted not to proceed with tying Oxford Elementary School into Oxford’s new sewer project.

It would have cost the school district $400,000 to expand the ongoing sewer project.

The Finance and Operations Committee recommended that directors vote against the proposal.

“If you’re going to borrow, what do you own in return? You don’t own that (sewer) pipe,” said Superintendent Rick Colpitts, who also recommended against the proposal. “You’d be paying a loan for something you’d never own.”

The town of Oxford is considering asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Office for additional funding to connect Wal-Mart and, if approved, Oxford Hills Elementary School to its sewer system, but the town faces a deadline this month.

The connections would occur during the second phase of a $23.7 million state-of-the-art sewer project, during which pipes would be installed throughout a Tax-Increment Financing District along Route 26 and into downtown Oxford along Route 121 and King Street.

Colpitts said he asked Oxford Town Manager Mike Chammings to look into the viability of tying the school into the town’s new sewer system when he first heard about it because of the age of the school’s sewer pipes.

In other business Monday night:

* About 75 people at the meeting a presentation from the Aspire Higher student race car team, race car driver Spencer Morse, teachers and a parent about the success of the project that has received nationwide attention.

Team members Nate Plourde, Jessica Bickford, Jade Smedberg, Christian Wynott, Saige McGinnis, Brook Carson and Sully Poland gave a 30-minute presentation on the program and how each of the 35 students on the team participate, from publicity and fundraising to car-building and technology.

It is part of the Oxford Hills Middle School Quest and STEM programs which, school officials and students said, inspire students through nontraditional ways to be engaged in school.

* Directors heard a presentation on the kindergarten through 12th-grade music curriculum. Music Department Chairman Kyle Jordan and members of the district-wide music department told the directors that the music curriculum has been revised in part so that each of the six elementary schools has a common rubric and assessment opportunities. The revised curriculum was unanimously approved by the board.

* The superintendent and Curriculum Director Heather Manchester gave a presentation on a three-year prekindergarten pilot program that could open the preschool doors for 140 students five days a week instead of the current two- or three-day program.

* Colpitts announced that Oxford Middle School teacher Laurie Catanese has been selected as the Maine Department of Education’s county Teacher of the Year. She will compete for Maine Teacher of the Year.

ldixon@sunmediagroup.net

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