A plan the Wiscasset School Committee is set to consider on Thursday night, Jan. 22, would help nail down the next steps in closing Wiscasset Primary School. If the panel passes it, the plan would go on to the Maine Department of Education for review.

Thursday’s meeting in the Wiscasset High School library starts at 6 p.m.

The school department released the proposed plan Friday. It outlines how the town would keep serving the grades that are displaced when the school closes. As discussed in talks leading up to last year’s committee and town votes to close the school, classes would move to Wiscasset Middle School.

In a letter to Acting Maine Education Commissioner Thomas Desjardin, Wiscasset Interim Superintendent of Schools Lyford Beverage states that, because the school committee has also voted to move grades seven and eight to Wiscasset High School starting next fall, the middle school will serve pre-Kindergarten through grade six.

Space is not a problem: The school’s existing space will house all the students, whose combined numbers currently total 287, according to Beverage’s letter. “There are ample classrooms, bathrooms, support rooms for specialized services, library facilities and play areas available,” Beverage writes.

The gym’s day-long availability is an improvement for primary school students, whose current gym has doubled as a cafeteria, the letter continues.

The proposal calls for adding equipment for younger students in the middle school’s play areas, and possibly fencing as well. Added parking may replace the tennis courts, an idea floated during last year’s consolidation talks.

The projected $785,524 in savings from the primary school closing is the same figure Beverage has previously cited. The proposed plan states that maintenance costs for the building on Gardiner Road will revert to the town and no longer be part of the school budget. But the shift may not take place as early as the next school year, Beverage said in a telephone interview Monday.

The town has yet to decide what to do with the building, so the next school budget may still include those costs, he said.

As for the consolidation’s potential impact on jobs, fewer staff may be needed for the two remaining schools, according the proposed plan.

“The committee is looking to maximize the service provided by all staff, recognizing also that some attrition will occur and reduce staffing costs as well,” it states.

Also Thursday, plans call for the committee to consider a schedule for superintendent candidates’ interviews. A dozen applications have come in, Beverage’s notes to the committee state. The committee is also slated to discuss plans for a business office.