Regional School Unit 56 board director Bruce Ross of Dixfield, seen in August second from right, reminds everyone attending the board of directors meeting at Dirigo High School on Tuesday that Region 9 School of Applied Technology in Mexico has a $809,284 bond vote on Election Day, Nov. 5. Ross is also a board director of the Career and Technical Education school in Mexico. From left are Superintendent Pam Doyen, directors Natalie Sneller, Joy Bradbury, Julie Carlow, Carl Lueders, Ross and Don Whittemore. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times

DIXFIELD — At Tuesday’s Regional School Unit 56 board of directors meeting, Director Bruce Ross of Dixfield reminded everyone that Region 9 School of Applied Technology has a $809,284 bond vote on Election Day, Nov. 5.

Ross is also a board director for the Career and Technical Education school in Mexico.

“It’s a bond that will allow our Region 9 (CTE school) to purchase a lot of equipment,” Ross said about the bond. It will be “at no cost to any town or any taxpayers,” he said.

He explained that the bond monies are in the form of a Maine State grant which needs to be approved by taxpayers on Nov. 5 before the school can use the funds.

“So, my plea is for everyone that can hear us (virtually or in-person), and anyone that is going to go out and vote on Nov. 5, to hopefully support Region 9,” Ross said.

Some of the items listed in the school’s equipment bond purchases are toolboxes, welders, a dump truck, a work truck, kayaks, tents, canoes, paddle boards, a brake lathe, snow machines, a docking system, a mini excavator, and more.

Residents of 16 communities — Andover, Bethel, Byron, Canton, Carthage, Dixfield, Gilead, Greenwood, Hanover, Mexico, Newry, Peru, Roxbury, Rumford, Upton and Woodstock — are served by the CTE school’s programming and services.

In other business, the RSU 56 board of directors approved sending a resolve to government senates and legislatures regarding the federally mandated Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Superintendent Pam Doyen explained that the act “is to support any of the needs of students that have disabilities. We are mandated to provide them with all of the accommodations and modifications that they need, and to this (point the federal government) have not funded it at 100% as they intended to from the beginning,” Doyen said.

She told the board that superintendents “across the nation” are coming together to ask for this resolve to be funded the way it was intended to be funded for school districts.

Historically, the district has received “anywhere from 30% to 40% of what we’re supposed to get,” she said. Following the board’s approval, Doyen said she would send the resolve to the “senates and legislatures.”

By doing so, it will inform the government that “RSU 56 is on board with asking (the federal government) to fund this currently unfunded mandate,” Doyen said.