POLAND — Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland school directors learned Monday night that their plan to apply for state funds for a ventilation project at Minot Consolidated School won’t happen this year.

Regional School Unit 16 had hoped to get approval from the Maine Department of Education’s School Revolving Renovation Fund to pay part of a heating and ventilation project.

The school has no mechanical ventilation, according to RSU 16 officials.

The Maine Department of Education will only be awarding money from the fund to school administrative units that have been approved by the education commissioner for offering Free Appropriate Public Education in early childhood special education for children 3 to 5 years old for either the 2024-25 or 2025-26 school year.

RSU 16 does not offer the Free Appropriate Public Education program.

According to the Department of Education, the number one priority for the money is health, safety and compliance issues, including roof structural upgrades, improvements to indoor air quality, compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, hazardous material abatement or removal and other health, safety and compliance issues.

Part of each School Revolving Renovation Fund loan is considered a grant and is forgiven. The forgiveness rate ranges from 30% to 70% and is based on the percentage of state subsidy paid to the local school system. The remaining balance is paid back over either five or 10 years at no interest.

Voters in the three towns approved a warrant article this year for a five-year $110,180 interest-free School Revolving Renovation Fund bond to pay for new accessibility ramps and bathroom modifications to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act at the Minot school.

The state will pay $68,290, or 61.98%, and RSU 16 will pay $41,890, or 38.02%. The repayment is $8,375 a year for five years.

While $28.6 million from the School Revolving Renovation Fund was made available for this year’s projects in 12 school districts, John Hawley, director of operations for RSU 16, said only $4 million is available for next year’s projects.

Earlier this summer directors suspended the $10.2 million lease purchase agreement to update the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in all three elementary schools. There were three reasons: regain financial stability, public outcry because residents did not get to vote on the matter, and the scope of the HVAC problems needed to be addressed more properly and accurately.

The HVAC system became an issue in the three aging elementary schools when a boiler at Minot Consolidated School broke down in the fall of 2022.

In another matter, Superintendent Amy Hediger informed directors that Scott Brown, state director of school facilities, visited the three elementary schools.

The district has filed applications for construction of three elementary schools.

Hediger also reported that high chronic absenteeism has decreased significantly since the 2021-22 school year when it soared to 40.2% while the state average was 31.5%.

Chronic absenteeism was defined by Hediger as students being absent for 10% or more of the total school days, regardless of whether the absence was excused or not.

In the 2022-23 school year chronic absenteeism fell to 27.03% while the state average was 27.3%

In the 2023-24 school year district absenteeism decreased to 20.74%. State figures were unavailable.

Hediger also offered the homeschool student count by year.

In 2018 there were 29 homeschoolers; it rose to 64 in 2019.

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, 204 students were homeschooled. The number was 151 in 2021, 144 in 2022, 151 in 2023 and 134 in 2024.

Hediger added that homeschoolers can and do attend district schools on a part-time basis, such as taking art or music courses or getting involved in extracurricular activities.

She pointed out that enrollment has increased since the start of the school year. In July there were 1,627 students and by September there were 1,674.

Hediger’s enrollment report comes two weeks after public criticism of the directors from Poland Select Board Chairperson Stephen Robinson, who said directors lacked “awareness and consciousness” and shouldn’t take information from the administration as gospel “and not drink the Kool-Aid.”

Although Robinson did not provide any figures, he said he believed enrollment is down in the district and high absenteeism was prevalent.

At the selectpersons meeting Sept. 22, Robinson said he was planning to attend the Oct. 7 directors meeting to propose forming a “directors-only subcommittee” to look into why students are not attending classes regularly and why enrollment has dropped in the district.

Robinson did not attend Monday night’s meeting. In an email sent to all directors a couple of days prior to their meeting he said he would be out of town and unable to attend. “But hope I can implore you to take up this topic during the meeting,” he wrote.