OXFORD — SAD 17 directors have agreed to fund a study of the Oxford Hills Middle School to address overcrowding at the aging facility on Pine Street in Paris.

Directors OK’d the use of $5,000 from the contingency fund at its meeting Monday night to pay for the feasibility study by Harriman architectural firm in Auburn.

The study will look at three possibilities, Superintendent Rick Colpitts said. They are:

* Adding on to and renovating the school;

*Removing portables and using alternative community-based facilities in conjunction with the school; and

* Building a middle school.

“The Operations Committee is spending this year studying the options in hopes of providing the board with some direction concerning long-term improvements,” Colpitts  said Wednesday.

The middle school houses 200 of its approximately 550 students in seven 20-plus-year-old portables next to the main building. Each unit has two classrooms, but half of one was closed this summer due to weak floors and a leaking roof.

In August, Colpitts said replacing the portables under a lease/purchase agreement would cost about $135,000 to $150,000 each, or about $1 million total. Renovating the portables would cost about $15,000 to $50,000 each, for a total of between $105,000 and $350,000 in local money.

Colpitts said Wednesday night that the renovation or replacement of the portables are still options but the board already has a “good idea” of what they will cost so that option will not be part of the Harriman study.

The study will now take a closer look at the alternatives. School officials already have an idea of what the cost estimates may be for some of them.

In August, they said building a temporary addition would cost between $1.7 and $2 million, financed with a local bond. Building a permanent addition and renovating the main building would cost between $15 million and $20 million, with the state subsidizing up to 100 percent of the cost.

The middle school is No. 28 on the state list of construction projects. Officials say about one or two projects get state funding each year.

The middle school was constructed in the mid-1950s and had an addition in the mid-1970s.

“The portable units were intended to temporarily address the crowding when first installed 20 to 25 years ago,” Colpitts said.

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