PARIS — Residents must take the lead and demand changes from their legislators to keep the escalating costs of public education and the decreasing assistance from the state in check. That’s the message that some 15 town and school officials from the SAD 17 eight-district towns agreed will be necessary to fix the inequities in […]

PARIS — Growing up Garrett Haslett of Oxford put in a lot of time into Boy Scouts, but then life interrupted. Not wanting to let all of that time go to waste, he decided to rejoin recently and complete his Eagle Scout project for one of his favorite haunts – the Paris Public Library. Last week, […]

PARIS — The Oxford Hills School District has been awarded a grant that is expected to save it and two other school districts more than $2 million over a five-year period. The projected $2,050,000 savings to SAD 17 and Maine Regional Vocational Center 11 (Oxford Hills Technical School), RSU 44 (Bethel, Greenwood, Newry and Woodstock), and […]

PARIS — School officials are inviting parents and others to a “Community Conversation” about the future of the Oxford Hills School District. The event will take place Monday, March 27 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Oxford Hills Middle School library (north campus). District Curriculum Director Heather Manchester said the event is an attempt to […]

AREA — A passion for hiking – not only with fellow humans but also man’s best friend – led to the creation of the Trail Hounds’ successful safe hiking project, which landed the team the opportunity to represent Maine in the North American Open Championships for the FIRST LEGO League in May. The Trail Hounds are […]

PARIS — What ocean is New Zealand in? “The Pacific.” And with that answer Paris Elementary School fifth-grade student George Floster became the winner of the school’s geography bee. George, the son of John and Lisa Floster, is a former basketball and baseball player, who likes to study on the Internet and read. George was recently […]

By Leslie H. Dixon PARIS — An Oxford Hills Middle School aspiring writer has received recognition from the Scholastic Writing Awards. Chloe Hodgdon, an eighth-grade student from Paris, won a Silver Key Award and eight of her classmates won honorable mentions in the 2017 Scholastic Writing Awards. “This is the first time we’ve entered the […]

By Leslie H. Dixon OXFORD — Teacher Ruth Wilson plans to fill a school bus with students, some of whom, may be this country’s future engineers. Oxford Elementary School was one of 16 schools selected to receive a bus grant to help defer transportation costs to get students to the Maine Engineering Expo at the University […]

By Leslie H. Dixon PARIS — At the end of its first phase, one thing is clear. The Blue Ribbon Commission on Education was succinct. The work of the 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission, which began contentiously  in April 2016 with what was called a “secret” breakfast meeting, hosted by Gov. Paul LePage at the governor’s […]