Mike Caron asks a question Monday during a meeting for Saint Dominic Academy families at the Royal Oak Room in Ironhorse Court in Lewiston. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — In a crowded room at Ironhorse Court where Saint Dominic Academy families were gathered, a newly formed board appealed to them for help in keeping the high school open, and updated them on negotiations with the Portland Diocese.

Dennis Russell, a Saint Dominic parent involved in the new board, which held the meeting Monday, asked for help from community members with experience in four areas: school finances, school curriculum and education, marketing and communication, and fundraising.

“I will tell you personally, if we can get it stood up and we can get past this first year, we’re going to thrive — it’s going to happen,” he said.

In the new board’s latest proposal to the diocese, members are asking to buy the Auburn campus for $4.9 million. That includes paying back the original $1.25 million gift from the diocese to help build the school and repayment of the $2.5 million debt accrued by the diocese over the past few years.

The school community has been frustrated by the decision to close the Auburn campus, announced March 28, and concerned over what might happen to the school built almost 25 years ago with $14 million of mostly local money, members of the public have said. The campus opened in 2002.

Cindy Nesbit asks a question Monday during a meeting for Saint Dominic Academy families in a packed house at the Royal Oak Room in Lewiston. Nesbit said the local money originally raised to build the school should give families more influence over decisions about its future. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

It is unclear what the diocese intends to do with the property if the school ceases operation after this school year. There has been some discussion about renting the campus to the new board for roughly $20,000 a month.

On Monday, Russell laid out the options available to the board members should the diocese not accept the offer to buy the campus.

He said the board could pay the $20,000 monthly rent, ask to reduce the monthly rent price or find a new location for a high school. The board has been looking at other possible sites for the school just in case.

“We obviously have some backup plans because we don’t know which way it will go,” Russell said. “We think it’s a very fair and reasonable offer. It leaves them whole for the financial problems, which they’ve stated is the problem here. It more than makes them whole. So we’re hopeful.”

Connie Bilodeau, a Saint Dominic Academy alumna from the class of 1961, asks a question Monday during a meeting for school families at the Royal Oak Room in Lewiston. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

The board has also been negotiating with the diocese on a way to facilitate a bridge year next school year, with the diocese operating the school one more year while the board works on privatizing it.

However, members say they have been frustrated at the way the diocese has negotiated, often offering delayed responses and increasing stipulations around the bridge year. In a public document late last week, the board members said they feel the diocese is intentionally erecting hurdles to hinder their efforts.

The diocese is not commenting publicly about negotiations until there is a resolution, stating “the Diocese of Portland has received and reviewed proposals from the Saint Dominic Regional High School independent board in response to the framework we have provided to operate the existing high school for a bridge year for 25/26. The diocese will not comment further until there is a resolution to this matter.”

Another point of contention is finances. The diocese is asking for $3 million in escrow it can draw from to cover deficits during the bridge year.

The new board has requested to see financial information related to school operations, but the diocese has not seemed agreeable to that request, members said. The board also wants to have more oversight of the escrow account during the next school year.

As of April 23, the board had received pledges for nearly $1.1 million, with $585,555 of that to be used for the bridge year, according to a board Facebook post.

Many attendees at Monday’s meeting also aired their frustrations with the diocese and its decision to close the school after this year.

Tina Kell makes an impassioned plea Monday to the Saint Dominic Academy board of directors at the Royal Oak Room in Lewiston. Kell asked the board to “forget the diocese” and make the school system completely private. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Some, such as Tina Kell, suggested the new board develop a K-12 school, instead of taking over just the high school, “because I’m over it, quite frankly,” she said.

Ideally, the board would like to privatize at least the middle school too, and continue to operate it from the Auburn campus, but the diocese has been adamant about keeping it and moving it to the Lewiston campus, Russell said. Because the diocese is not open to privatizing kindergarten through eighth grade, the board plans now only include taking the high school private.

One woman asked if there are any legal pathways the community can take against the diocese in regard to the Auburn campus to continue Catholic education there. One board member said there wasn’t.

Cindy Nesbit said Bishop James Ruggieri essentially works for parishioners. She hopes board members are emphasizing to the diocese that the church will likely lose contributions over this. She said she wants her contributions to go to the school and not things that are not Catholic related. She said she thinks the diocese has awoken a “monster.”

“Our Catholic faith and our ancestors built these churches and schools. We are the diocese, we have a say in how that money is spent,” she said.

Though the hurdles to privatization are high, Russell said, it is possible to keep the school open.

“We’re trying to do the right thing,” he said. “We can do it together, we can. It’s going to take work, it’s going to be a heavy lift, but we can do it.”