DIXFIELD – After years of toil, it’s finally official – the town of Peru and Peru School are part of SAD 21 in the eyes of state education officials.

On Tuesday, SAD 21 Superintendent Thomas Ward said that he had received from the State Board of Education a new certificate for the new SAD 21 district, the one that merges Peru with the old district’s towns of Canton, Carthage and Dixfield.

The merger, however, doesn’t fully take effect for students until the 2005-06 school year.

In fact, SAD 21 and Peru School, and both of their school boards are to continue operating as usual for the 2004-05 school year.

On Wednesday, Ward was in Augusta attending an Education Board meeting. Officials were to put a new state-of-the-art elementary school facility for the new SAD 21 on Maine’s protected list for funding.

“It’s just a formality,” Ward said.

Moving right along, the new SAD 21 Consolidated Board of Directors is to have its first ever meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 18, in the Dirigo High School cafeteria.

Members of the consolidated board and the towns they represent are:

• Dixfield – Barbara Chow, Victoria Brown, Cynthia Gould, Shelly Harlow, David Berry, and Leslie Skibitsky.

• Canton – Scott Verrill, Cynthia Bissell, and Ben McCollister.

• Carthage – Linda Berry and Linda Jamison.

• Peru – Richard Colpitts, Tammi Lyons, Janet Rowley, and Lynda Hebert.

Agenda topics include electing a chairperson and vice-chairperson by secret ballot, laying the groundwork to begin drafting a school budget for the 2005-06 school year, and advertising for an architect to design the new district’s new elementary school facility.

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