Maine School Administrative District 58 board of directors met Thursday at Mt. Abram Regional High School in Salem Township and began preparations to open withdrawal negotiations with at least one of the three towns exploring withdrawing from the district.

Director Sue Pratt, the representative for the Strong withdrawal committee, said the group was waiting on the district to set a date to open negotiations.

Committees in Strong, Kingfield and Phillips are each on step eight of the 22-step withdrawal process. Earlier this year, residents in those towns voted in favor of sending a letter of intent to withdraw from district to the board of directors and the Maine commissioner of education.

Avon also considered moving forward with the withdrawal process but the article failed to pass 36-23 on July 22. Avon is the only town in the district without a school.

The district includes Mt. Abram Regional High School in Salem Township.

Directors Jessie Stinchfield and Mary Lecours of Strong, Brad Orbeton of Kingfield , Danielle Vachon of Phillips will serve on the negotiations committee for Strong and Kingfield. A committee for Phillips negotiations will be established at a later date.

Superintendent Laura Columbia reported she had met with the district’s legal counsel to review details of the withdrawal process.

“I have never been through the negotiation process with a town before. Just the amount of information needed to do it well and accurately for both teams is just, really, a lot of comprehensive information,” Columbia said.

There could be a need to hire additional office help, she said.

“Looking into the amount of information that is required for us to pull for the negotiations process for the towns and then the information that is required for us to pull to formulate the closing of a school, our business office does not have the capacity to do both simultaneously,” Columbia said.

“We are anticipating all three towns will want to negotiate,” Columbia said.

Columbia gave a “very rough” estimate of $5,000 to $10,000, if that position was needed.

The Phillips committee is working on identifying a consultant, Director Jessica Cain of Phillips said.

Director Lillian Cheimis of Kingfield said the newly-formed Kingfield committee would hold a meeting Tuesday, Nov 25.

“We plan to discuss a timeline. They want this to be a thoughtful process. That is more important than being timely so extensions are possible. We are going to be looking at school configuration options and we are going to be looking at if withdrawing actually could cost less.

The MSAD 58 board of directors Finance and Operations Committee has examined multiple reconfiguration models since May after reviewing a districtwide facilities assessment. 

One of those models, referred to as revised A2, was to close Day Mountain Regional Middle School in Strong, which serves grades 6-8, and shift grades 7-12 to Mount Abram High School. That plan would also configure Phillips Elementary School and Kingfield Elementary School to serve prekindergarten through grade 6.

In October, the board voted against the plan.

Since that decision, the committee has made no additional progress regarding closing the school, Columbia said.