RUMFORD — The Regional School Unit 10 board of directors agreed to support the restructuring of the district’s Building, Grounds and Transportation department’s staff organization during their meeting at Mountain Valley High School on Monday.

Superintendent Deb Alden led the discussion regarding why the district is considering the changes. She noted that the district’s teachers’ union, the Western Foothills Education Association, “would rather have it go through the negotiation process, so we’ve asked to get started on (staff contract) negotiations so we can do this,” Alden said.

Regional School Unit 10 Building, Grounds and Transportation Director Devin Roberts, seen Aug. 5, is to prepare for changes to the department as discussed during Monday’s directors meeting Mountain Valley High School in Rumford. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times

She explained that the Nezinscot Valley — Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner — building, grounds and transportation coordinator and the Mountain Valley — Rumford and Mexico — coordinator are currently under their central office technical contract, and the district is seeking to eliminate those positions and instead have an assistant BGT director under an administrative contract and a transportation specialist who “would focus on the transportation routes across the whole district,” Alden said.

Board Director Allison Long of Buckfield told Alden that she was concerned about the effects of the changes on her region because “there’s been a lot of bus (transportation issues) happening,” however, she thought that “having somebody focused on bus routes maybe would be positive in that way.”

Alden added that having only one BGT administrator for both regions as the district currently has with BGT Director Devin Roberts can be difficult since the areas are many miles apart; the town of Buckfield is 29 miles or about a 40-minute drive from Rumford.

“Having two different administrators … (Roberts) could be in the other place but there could be an administrative person here (in Rumford). And that way you would have an administrative-level person in both places,” she said.