MEXICO — Regional School Unit 10 honored 14 retiring employees at a Retirement and Recognition Dinner at the Region 9 School of Applied Technology on Monday.

The retirees together represented 313 years of service, Superintendent Deborah Alden said.

Retirees from Rumford Elementary School are general education teacher Sheryl Bank, 24 years; special education teacher Marie Tanguay, 21 years; educational technician Kathy Thompson, 29 years; and educational technician Lisa Wallace, 28 years.

Retirees from Meroby Elementary School are special education teacher Doris Collette-Barrett, 29 years; and educational technician Cynthia Welch, 32 years.

From Mountain Valley High School, head custodian James Drapeau, 23 years.

From Mountain Valley Middle School, general education teacher Don Fuller, 15 years, and general education teacher James Radmore, 35 years,

From Dirigo Elementary School, custodian/bus driver David Phair, four years.

From Dirigo High School, general education teacher Karen Phair, 31 years.

From Pennacook Learning Center, educational technician David Prevost, over 15 years.

From RSU 10, occupational therapist Cathie Sangiolo-Gaidis, 12 years.

From Hartford-Sumner Elementary School, secretary and after-school program employee Shirley Twitchell, over 15 years.

School board directors retiring this year are: Dixfield, Barbara Chow, 22 years, and Bruce Ross, 12 years; Carthage, Ronnie Hutchinson, seven years; Peru, Edgar Parent, one and a half  years, and Canton, Natalie Sneller, one year.

All five retirees have joined the RSU 56 board, which was formed after the towns withdrew from RSU 10 in November to form their own district.

Judy Boucher of Byron has been on the RSU 10 board for eight years. She joined Byron’s school board, which withdrew from RSU 10 in November.

Frank DiConzo of Rumford also retired after 13 years on the RSU 10 board.

Student school board members finishing their appointments are: Buckfield Junior-Senior High School graduate Mae Kolln, one year; Mountain Valley High School graduate Travis Palmer, one year; and Dirigo High School senior Carleen Hutchinson, two years.

In other business Monday, the school board approved a one-year Child Development Services feasibility study funded by the Department of Education.

“Currently in the state of Maine, Child Development Services is supposed to identify and service children from (ages) birth to 5 who have a disability,” Alden said. But, she added, some special education directors in Maine “have been concerned quite a bit of the time when those particular children become school age and we learn that either they weren’t identified or they were identified but they never got services because the services weren’t available.”

The feasibility study would provide the district with “another set of hands that (the Department of Education) pays entirely for the salaries, the benefits, and the professional development of a whole person, to help work in (Special Education Director Clarissa Fish’s) office (next year),” Alden said.

In other news, Assistant Superintendent Pam Doyen said she and Technology Director Kevin Kaulback, along with Mountain Valley High School Principal Matt Gilbert and Buckfield Junior-Senior High School Principal George Reuter chose the 11-inch Apple MacBook Air for each high school student next year.

Some reasons the group listed for choosing the MacBook Air were that students and staff are using the Apple platform and will not need any new training, current computer applications used throughout RSU 10 are compatible with Apple, and Apple has been used successfully throughout most of the district for over 20 years and has always been reliable.

Following budget questions from the board of directors regarding the computers, Alden said she would get more information for the board to make its final decision on the purchase at their next meeting.

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