Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit 12 plans to keep sending its pre-kindergarten Alna and Westport Island students to Edgecomb Eddy School past the 2023 end date of a pair of 2018 pacts with Edgecomb and Boothbay-Boothbay Harbor Community School District. In SVRSU’s Thursday night, May 6 board meeting and a phone interview the next day, Superintendent of Schools Howie Tuttle said the partnership works for everyone. And now Edgecomb wants to extend it, he said.

The board unanimously authorized Tuttle to extend it another five years. He said Friday, he did not know if the extension will run five years from now or five years from 2023, for a 2028 end date, but either way, he would take it.

“They really like the relationship, and we like the relationship. They want to renew right now,” Tuttle told the board over Zoom and Youtube. Under the partnership, SVRSU sends its Alna and Westport Island PreK students only to Edgecomb Eddy; and Boothbay Region High School cannot refuse Alna or Westport Island students, Tuttle said. “So that benefits (us) and I have not been told that will change. And if it does, I’ll bring that back to you.”

Also May 6, the board called the June 8 district-wide referendum on the $24.4 million budget, and updated the district’s reopening plan to note if a county’s COVID-19 designation is yellow, and if the district opts to keep school open full-time instead of going hybrid, it will issue a voice alert, letter and press release encouraging families to follow COVID-19 protocols in their private lives. “If they don’t, and you take the whole soccer team, to your house, for a party, with no masks, inside, it has the potential to spread (the virus) around and then we can’t be in school five days a week,” Tuttle said.

He said a theme he is hearing from Maine Education Commissioner Pender Makin and fellow superintendents is, school is one of the safer places for students, due to the filtration systems and other steps. “If you don’t have (students) in school, you lose control” of where they will be when their parents have to go to work, he said.

Participants discussed possibly further updating the plan in June to clarify, at yellow times, staying open full-time is the priority but that other models will be considered. “You’re considering the situation on the ground, and then making that judgment,” Alna representative Doug Morier explained.

Board member Michael Lemelin of Chelsea said he has appreciated Tuttle keeping school open. “I want to thank you for (that),” Lemelin said.

Earlier, Tuttle noted appreciation weeks for teachers, nurses and food service staff and an appreciation day for building administrators. He then praised all the district’s staff. It has been a long year and they have done a fantastic job, he said.