In estimates Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Kim Andersson shared Monday night, tuitioning out the high school grades, closing Wiscasset Elementary School and having all the grades up through eighth at the remaining school would save a few hundred thousand dollars a year.

Is that worth what would be lost, asked some members of the Wiscasset Future of the Schools Committee.

Last year, the selectmen-appointed, voter-requested panel said closing the high school grades might cost the town more for education. But after the committee restarted, the math was redrawn. 

Monday night, Andersson went through the updated estimates. In the meeting and in spreadsheets she provided on request post-meeting, Andersson said maintaining both WES and what is now Wiscasset Middle High School, and tuitioning out the high schoolers, would cost about $136,313 more a year than the status quo; and tuitioning out the high schoolers, and closing WES and moving those grades to WMHS with the middle schoolers, would instead save $305,368 a year. 

Andersson said she has not figured in costs for adapting WMHS to serve the younger grades. 

Members picked or, in some cases, were picked for, three subcommittees to serve on: status quo, possibly including expansion; tuitioning out the high school grades; and a regional partnership of some kind, maybe a school that starts with grade nine and has a tech center – possibly through a state plan Andersson and Selectmen’s Chair Sarah Whitfield, the board’s liaison to the committee, said the state will be take applications for. 

Member Jason Putnam said saving $300,000 is one consideration, but could the committee also look at the cultural impact of Wiscasset “losing our school.”

Member Debra Pooler concurred. She said questions to be answered include if Wiscasset has done all it could to keep the schools “the big strong thing” they’ve always been. “We need to look at what we’d really lose. It’s not about money. It’s about community. And I think we’ve really got to look at that.”

Putnam said the town might have more students if it had more housing. Teachers also have trouble finding a place to live, Pooler said.