Wiscasset’s two remaining public schools have new names. Wiscasset High School is becoming Wiscasset Middle High School; and Wiscasset Middle School is becoming Wiscasset Elementary School.

A change in names was sought due to the closing of Wiscasset Primary School and the reshuffling of grades the other schools will serve. Wiscasset Elementary School will serve pre-kindergarten through grade six; Wiscasset Middle High School, grades seven through 12.

The Wiscasset School Committee’s 4-1 decision on June 25 ended months of committee discussions, in-school surveys and attempts to gather public input. Few responses went into a box at the polls during Wiscasset’s June 9 elections, school committee member Chelsea Haggett said.

Suggestions in the box included Wiscasset Academy, a name that the committee had discussed as an option for the high school; Wiscasset Junior Senior High School; Wiscasset High School; Wiscasset Elementary School; and one suggestion to name the high school the Hesper building and the other school the Luther Little building, after the two ships that sat for years in the Sheepscot River in Wiscasset.

Chairman Steve Smith asked if the decision could wait until July when new Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot is on board; however, administrative assistant Stacey Souza and outgoing interim Superintendent Lyford Beverage urged against waiting. The names need to be in place for insurance, technology and state reporting, among other reasons, they said.

The committee mulled keeping Wiscasset High School for the name of the school that will move from serving grades nine through 12 to seven through 12. Interim Wiscasset Middle School Principal Bruce Scally said that would be treating the seventh and eighth graders like high school students, and that the seventh and eighth graders would see it that way.

Committee member Michael Dunn questioned whether the seventh and eighth graders would mind. “I don’t know that they really care about being called middle school students,” Dunn said.

Fellow committee member Eugene Stover brought up a suggestion he made at a prior meeting, to change the school department’s name to the Sheepscot River School District. Other members said that the idea could be looked at later and perhaps brought up on a town meeting ballot next year.

“If we’re going to drop Wiscasset (from the department’s name), we need to engage the community,” Smith said.

Stover was the lone dissenter in the committee’s vote for the names Wiscasset Middle High School and Wiscasset Elementary School. The department should be looking forward, not back, he said.

Plans call for seventh and eighth grade programs to be called Wiscasset Middle School programs and grades 9-12 programs to still be referred to as Wiscasset High School programs, avoiding having to change the school names on uniforms, committee members said.

The existing lettering on the side of each of the two buildings was bought at the same time and matches, Souza said. So for Wiscasset Middle High School, the letters for “middle” can be reused from the middle school, she said.

Beverage honored

June 25 marked the Dresden-raised Beverage’s last committee meeting as interim superintendent. He received an aerial photograph of North Haven, where he has a boat. He called the photograph handsome.

Smith praised Beverage’s service, including his help with the transition from three schools to two.

“Really it’s just a monster amount of work, and there’s no way we could have done it without you and your leadership,” Smith told him.

“Working with you has been a pleasure for me ... I know the whole school board has learned a lot,” Smith continued. “I think you’ve left Wiscasset in a much, much better place than when you came, and it was a difficult situation to come into, so I extend the thanks of the board and myself.”

Beverage predicted a smooth transition for Wilmot and the department. “She has done a great deal of work to hit the ground running,” he said.

Pre-K plans proceed

The Maine Department of Education has given tentative approval for the new pre-kindergarten program at the elementary school, Curriculum Coordinator Patricia Watts told the School Committee. The program will run four days a week, which is typical for pre-kindergarten programs, Watts said.