Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit 12 Superintendent of Schools Howie Tuttle said April 16, unless conditions change, the district that serves Alna and Westport Island will keep distance learning until the school year ends, and will not end school early.

Tuttle told the board of directors in the live-streamed meeting on the district’s YouTube channel, some Maine districts may end students’ year May 31 and fill the June dates with staff training. “I’m not recommending that. I don’t know what that would look like ... an  awful lot of Zoom meetings for two or three weeks. And I just think the students need to stay in school, essentially.” The district could no longer provide food if school ended early, he added.

“That is also an issue, so I feel we need to just stay in session and keep sending food out, keep sending out the learning stuff, and I imagine people are going to be pretty sick of it by June, so hopefully the teachers can come up with some light, fun activities ... Unfortunately we won’t be able to do ... field trips and things that kids typically do.”

The board followed Tuttle’s and Maine Education Commissioner Pender Makin’s recommendation about the rest of the school year, and passed a $24,008,290 budget proposal for 2020-21, up 4.2%, with the cost to towns up an overall 3.3% after state subsidy, according to the meeting packet. “(The proposal) is actually less than what you saw in March because our health insurance came in at a 1 % increase,” Tuttle said.

“Wow,” Board Chair Sandra Devaney of Palermo said.

Westport Island’s tab is projected to rise 11.8%, to $851,936; Alna’s, 2.7%, to $1,018,284; Chelsea’s, 1.5%, to $2,599,065; Palermo’s, 1.4%, to $1,945,651; Somerville’s, 1.9%, to $668,095; Whitefield’s, 2.8%, to $2,389,223; and Windsor’s, 4.8%, to $3,354,081, according to the packet.

Tuttle does not know when the proposal will face a district budget meeting with residents. “So we’re just going to be in a holding pattern until we can actually hold (it).” 

Devaney thanked everyone in the schools for the great job she said they are doing getting the learning packets and food out to students.