The Regional School Unit 10 board of directors meet Monday at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford and online via Zoom. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times
RUMFORD — The Regional School Unit 10 board of directors will vote on the 2021-22 budget April 26 at 6:30 p.m. at Buckfield Junior-Senior High School.
The $29.94 million spending plan was reviewed by directors Monday. It compares to $29.44 million for this fiscal year, which ends June 30. It represents an average decrease of 2.51% for the district towns of Buckfield, Hanover, Hartford, Mexico, Roxbury, Rumford and Sumner.
Superintendent Deb Alden said the district’s health insurance costs increased 3.9%, much less than the 10% increase budgeted.
In other business Monday, the district’s building advisory committee met via Zoom with architects from Harriman in Auburn about plans for a new school for prekindergarten through eighth grades attending Rumford Elementary School and Meroby Elementary and Mountain Valley Middle schools in Mexico.
If approved, the project would likely begin in the spring of 2023 and take more than two years.
A districtwide straw poll to gauge support for building at the site of Meroby and the middle schools is planned after the Maine Department of Education receives necessary information, Alden said.
A public forum to give an overview of the project is set for May 12 at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford and via Zoom.
In another announcement, Alden told the board that as of this past weekend students from one classroom at Rumford Elementary School worked from home because of a COVID-19 case.
“Since then, we’ve had another couple of positive cases at (the school),” she said, “not necessarily linked to that classroom.”
She said three staff members were not required to quarantine because they were fully vaccinated against the virus.
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