State Board to Approve Dexter Pre-K?

It's always interesting to see how a total stranger describes your situation. It's not unlike reading your own medical chart after the doctor's left the room.

Here's how the Commissioner of Education (actually the "School Facilities Services Team" at the Department of Education) describes our present situation at the Dexter Primary/Middle School:

The site replaces the existing school site in Dexter that has a number of issues. They include a single entrance on a very steep grade that runs through a residential section of Dexter. The existing site is at the top of a hill and cannot be expanded. It also has extensive ledge and is bordered by a lake that supplies water for the community.

Here's the recommendation (Major Capital Improvement Program; Site Approval Consideration; MSAD #46, New Elementary Pre K-8 School Project in Dexter, Maine).

We're on the agenda (here) for 1 pm next Wednesday, Sanford Vocational Technical Center.

Here's something to consider.

When the voters considered the site and voted last Thursday evening, they considered a site for a K-8 school, not a pre-K-8 school. Even the District's meager publicity spoke of it this way. Here's how the BDN article had it:

SAD 46 residents packed the Dexter Middle School cafeteria on Thursday to support a Fern Road location for the proposed construction of a new school for kindergarten through grade eight.

And the District's own Web site project page refers to this as a K-8 project.

We also know that the architect spoke of the Board having to make a decision soon about pre-K*. Yet no vote has been held.

Wonder how now, at the State Board, it's a pre-K proposal?

*"He also instructed the Board that it needs to address the issue of pre-K inclusion soon, in order to enhance student population calculations as well as planning costs." from our report (here) of the July 5 School Board meeting.