FARMINGTON — Superintendent Christian Elkington presented his Oct. 14 report to the RSU 9 board of directors, outlining new staff hires, district attendance trends, and the growing number of families choosing home instruction for the 2025-26 school year.

Staffing

Elkington reported several personnel changes, including Wanda Boutlier being hired as an educational technician at Academy Hill School, and Christian Alm being hired as a new music teacher at Mt. Blue Middle School. Brenda Fronk transferred to Foster Career and Technical Education Center, while Truly Chillemi, a Mt. Blue High School life science teacher, resigned.

Foster Tech

Elkington announced that Foster Career & Technical Education Center was selected as one of four Maine schools to be featured in the inaugural season of Maine Loves Its Public Schools, a statewide video series showcasing success stories in education.

The episode, which spotlights Foster Tech’s apprenticeship program, will be screened during a community event on Oct. 30 from 5:30-6:45 p.m. in the Mt. Blue Campus Forum. The public is invited to attend, view the 50-minute video, and meet students and staff involved in the program.

Elkington told the Franklin Journal it was “way too early to tell” how the recognition might impact enrollment or interest but added that the feature “continues to demonstrate that FTC is not sitting on its laurels but looking at other ways to support student interests and needs.” He said the district believes “a strong apprenticeship program has the opportunity to support almost every program at FTC along with students at MBHS.”

Balance

Elkington said class sizes across the district have shifted since spring projections, with some grades larger than expected and others smaller. He cautioned that while the district aims for balanced class sizes, enrollment fluctuations make planning challenging.

“Our budget is finite,” he said, noting that adding staff to address uneven class sizes would require offsetting cuts or new revenue. He suggested that future planning could include “subject area grade teams or multi-age classrooms” to better respond to shifting student populations.

Attendance

According to district data, chronic absenteeism has declined in several schools since last year. At Mt. Blue Middle School, absences dropped slightly to 6.09% in Q1, while Cape Cod Hill School saw overall improvement to 5.19% for the same period. However, some schools, including Mt. Blue High School, continue to report higher-than-average absence rates at around 6.83%, though still an improvement from the previous year’s data.

Elkington said that while “we have had some improvements from year to year,” the district has “not found any one strategy to reduce this number and so we continue to research and problem-solve.” He added that “MBHS has worked hard to improve their overall attendance but chronic absenteeism has not yet seen the overall improvement they are trying to achieve.”

He said RSU 9 has “a committee digging into our numbers which meets monthly. They are not only looking at our numbers but also at what other districts are doing to see what we might be able to tweak” as part of planning for 2026.

Home instruction

Elkington also reported that 251 students are receiving home instruction within RSU 9 this year, representing about 12% of the district’s total student population.

Of those, 53 are new homeschoolers and 198 are returning. Farmington leads with 81 students, followed by New Sharon (55), Chesterville (34), and Wilton (31). Families use various programs to meet state standards, including Freedom Academy, Acellus Academy, and other accredited providers.

He said the total number of home-instructed students is expected to increase slightly as more are added, but will likely end up “about 5% below 24-25.” Nearly half of families homeschooling this year “have never sent their children to RSU 9 schools,” and the district’s home instruction numbers “increased about 40% after COVID,” he said.

When asked about town-by-town variations, Elkington said, “Farmington is by far the largest community of our 10 towns and so I believe that is why theirs are the biggest.”

“Our goal is to support every learner in our community, whether they attend one of our schools full-time or learn at home,” Elkington said.