LIVERMORE FALLS — The RSU 73 Facilities Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend to the board that Livermore Falls High School be closed as of June 30, 2013.

Superintendent Bob Wall said the closing would be contingent upon the majority of voters in Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls approving an addition to Jay High School.

He plans to check with the state to see if the contingent portion of a motion by the school board would be legal. If not, then if the school board votes to close the school and the addition fails, the board would have to revote.

The committee will also recommend forming a panel consisting of educators, students and community members to develop a plan for an addition to the north campus in Jay, as suggested by Principal Gilbert Eaton at Spruce Mountain High School North Campus.

RSU 73 directors are scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12, at the Cedar Street complex in Livermore Falls. If there is no school on Thursday due to a predicted snowstorm, then that meeting will be postponed, Wall said.

If the school board sends the closing of the Livermore Falls school to voters in Livermore and Livermore Falls and voters reject closing it, then both towns would be responsible for paying $650,758.79 to keep it open.

Wall said he received a clarification that if one town votes to close the school and the other doesn’t, then the school closes.

Eaton said there has been a great deal of misperception and misunderstanding about the capacity of the Jay school to absorb about 300 additional students and 30-plus staff members in addition to the 230 students and staff already there.

As is, the high school in Jay will not fit the 500-plus students in a combined school, he said.

Eaton and Livermore Falls campus Principal Steve Leunig estimate that 25,000 square feet of additional space is needed to meet the needs of the communities’ students for the next 40 years, well into the 21st century.

“We need to provide a facility that will serve to maintain and attract a population base of families and students to our communities,” Eaton said. “We need to become a beacon school.”

There have been concerns from the community about the loss of a school, he said.

“That is understandable,” he said.

But consolidating the high school students at the Jay campus makes a lot of sense since the sixth- through eighth-grade population is already consolidated at the adjacent middle school in that town, Eaton said.

The vote to consolidate RSU 36 and the Jay School Department passed by margins of 6-1 in Jay, 3-1 in Livermore and 2-1 in Livermore Falls. Most people acknowledged the plan to consolidate grades six through eight at the middle school in Jay the first year, and nine through 12 at the high school in Jay, the following year, he said. What wasn’t realized was the impact that would have, he said.

The district now has a responsibility to bring the two high school student populations together. The move will create efficiencies and allow the staff to offer more opportunities to students, he said.

That requires adequate space, he said.

A couple of residents asked the committee to slow the process down so that all the details and contingencies can be figured out.

Other residents disagreed saying the process has not been rushed and it is time to make a decision.

Facilities committee member and board Director Dan DiPompo of Jay said it was time to move forward.

The consolidation planning committees highly recommended the high schools be consolidated in Jay and Livermore Falls school be closed, he said.

With $700,000 in savings a year, he said, it will take no time to pay off an addition costing $4 million to $6 million.

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