Pownal residents voiced their support for Pownal Elementary School during a Freeport-area school budget meeting on Feb. 25, with budget talks weighing on the repurposing of the elementary school.

Regional School Unit 5 is in the process of taking over the Early Childhood Development Services program for 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds by next year in July 2027. However, there is no adequate space for the 3-year-old students RSU 5 will receive for the incoming cohort of special needs students, Superintendent Tom Gray said during a Feb. 11 school budget meeting. Gray proposed repurposing the Pownal Elementary School as an early childhood pre-K and preschool center, shifting its elementary and middle school students to other district schools. 

“I do feel like I have to acknowledge that we don’t have a good solution for the 3-year-olds, and I don’t think we will have a good solution for the 3-year-olds without some kind of reconfiguration,” Gray said.

Pownal residents responded with an online petition opposing the dissolution of Pownal Elementary School, which has received over 1,000 signatures.

Around 17 Pownal residents, most parents with students in Pownal Elementary School, turned out to voice their displeasure to the RSU 5 board over the closure of ‌Pownal Elementary School on Feb. 25.

“It is my hope that the Pownal community rallies around [the school] to support a solution to the budget shortfall that does not include dismantling the school and sending our kids to Durham,” Lindsay Hahn said at the Feb. 25 school board meeting.

On Jan. 28, Gray presented three “tiers” of proposed district budgets, with increases ranging between 6% and 8%, with all tiers resulting in a reduction in staff. Gray recommended the 7% increase option.

A 7% increase would add $2.9 million to $47.3 million total budget compared to $44.4 million during the current school year. These changes could reduce general education technician positions, Gray said. However, vacant special education positions might be available to teachers whose positions could be cut.

The school board is considering cutting $1.7 million out of the budget, with a share coming from staffing reductions. Some of these positions include a Freeport High School math teacher, English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) teacher and community outreach coordinator.

RSU 5 will not eliminate all teaching jobs at Pownal Elementary School, but the teaching staff will move with the grades to different schools.

Early childhood education students with special needs could go to Pownal Elementary School and then move to Durham Community School for kindergarten through sixth grade. Durham seventh and eighth graders could shift to Freeport Middle School. The sixth grade could shift over to Mast Landing School, becoming a districtwide school for fourth to sixth grades.

Morse Street School could transition to a kindergarten through third grade school, with Freeport High School remaining unchanged. Middle school students under the new class grade shift would come into Freeport sooner, Gray said.

School board member Lois Kilby-Chesley brought up a concern that 3-year-olds could be on the bus for more than an hour to get to school. School board member Stephanie Worth also raised a concern that education opportunity inequities would shift to geographic inequities.

The school board has one more meeting to discuss the budget before adoption on March 25, with a final vote later in June.