LISBON – How to and how much? That’s what residents wanted to know at Monday night’s forum on forming a Lisbon-Durham community school district and building a high school together.

There was no opposition to the idea among the 50 people attending.

The proposal comes from an advisory committee formed last year, after favorable straw polls in both towns on creating a community school district to build a joint high school. The recommended name would be The Durham-Lisbon Community School District.

Lisbon and Durham are in School Union 30, sharing the cost of a superintendent and a central office and staff, but having their own school committees and operating their own schools independently. This would remain unchanged for elementary grades under a community school district, Welsh said.

The committee recommended against allowing Durham students to attend other high schools if a new school were built. There are 218 Durham high school students, eight of whom attend Lisbon High School, while most of the others attend school in Brunswick, Superintendent Shannon Welsh said.

Grandfathering juniors and seniors for the first two years after the high school is built would cost Durham an additional $207,630 without special education and transportation, and Lisbon an extra $269,255.

A community school district high school would cost Lisbon $2,667 per student, compared to $2,759 now. It would cost Durham $3,284 per student, compared to the average $4,492. Durham pays Brunswick $7,100 per student now, or a total of $l.6 million in tuition.

The committee recommended a school district committee with five members from each town and weighted votes, the same as Union 30. A cost-sharing formula may be determined on each town’s valuation and student population. Neither of those figures were presented.

A formal vote on the school district and high school proposal is anticipated in December.

A similar forum will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at Durham Elementary School gym.