By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

OXFORD – The SAD 17 Board of Directors voted to expel a female student from Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School on Monday.

“It was a violation of substance abuse,” Assistant Superintendent Mark LaRoach said when asked what led to the expulsion. He declined to comment on the student’s age because she is a minor.

The vote to expel the student was unanimous, with one abstention.

A student is expelled for an indefinite amount of time unless there is a federal firearms charge. LaRoach said the student plans to complete a readmission plan. At the completion of the plan, board members must determine whether the behavior is likely to recur before voting whether to readmit a student.

In other business, board members voted 13-1 in favor of reinstating a library technician position at Oxford Hills Middle School. The position will be 18 hours per week at a cost of $8,135 to the district, with $1,135 coming from the district’s contingency fund and the remainder being funded by turnover savings.

Turnover savings are realized when actual employment costs fall below what had been budgeted for personnel.

Superintendent Mark Eastman had presented board members with two options for the position reinstatement, the first one being the 18-hour-per-week option. The second option would have reinstated the position at 30 hours per week at a cost of $13,147 to the district.

That option was rejected by the board by a vote of 9-6. In voting against the full-time option, some board members cited a vote by taxpayers last June that eliminated the position entirely.

The position had been included in a $493,000 supplemental budget article that was rejected by voters last June. However Eastman said the elimination of the position has created difficulties at the middle school library because it forces the library to close for one hour while the librarian takes a lunch break. “This has made access difficult (for students),” he said.

It has also slowed getting library materials in circulation, Eastman said.

The new position takes effect Jan. 3, 2006.

Board members also voted to dip into the contingency fund an additional $23,500 to fund two education technician positions, one at Madison Avenue Elementary School and one at Waterford Memorial Elementary School.

Eastman said the positions will help address class size issues as well as meeting the various educational needs of students in each class.

The education technician positions and the library technician position will reduce the district’s contingency fund to $98,000.