PARIS — Oxford Hills residents attending a straw poll meeting about the site of a proposed new Oxford Hills Middle School overwhelmingly gave their approval to build it on Pine Street in South Paris, the site of the current school.

One hundred and fourteen raised their hands to vote yes, while nine expressed opposition.

During the meeting, Lisa Sawin of Harriman Architecture & Design walked residents through the 21 procedural steps Maine Department of Education requires for state-supported school construction projects and the research that goes into determining researching potential sites.

With the straw poll confirming that Pine Street is the best location to pursue, Harriman and Maine School Administrative District 17 will now submit the site application to Maine DOE for state approval.

The Maine School Construction Committee will determine application acceptance June 11.

Following that milestone, the Oxford Hills community will be asked to participate in a second straw poll on the new school’s concept design, which will then be submitted to the School Construction Committee by July 11.

State approval for the design concept will be announced in mid-August.

Language for a districtwide referendum to approve the middle school project will be issued in September, and a referendum will be held in November.

One opponent of the project, Pine Street resident and OHMS neighbor Lisa Palmer, asked about the school being in proximity to the former AC Lawrence Tannery, which was located across the Little Androscoggin River from OHMS, on Oxford Street.

She has also posted her concerns with the project on social media, including a link to an inactive Environmental Protection Agency webpage about site evaluations that took place at AC Lawrence’s “sludge lagoons” in 2003-2004. Sludge was removed from the site 18 years ago.

During her presentation, Sawin shared details about environmental testing conducted at the Oxford Street site as part of school construction due diligence, which showed no evidence of sludge.

In March of 2025, 25 soil samples, bored from nine to 25 feet deep, were analyzed for contaminants, with none detected.

Last month an environmental site assessment was done on the OHMS site and no evidence of contaminated waste or sludge was found. According to that assessment the Pine Street property has been used as a school site for the last 112 years, but not for any industrial/commercial manufacturing purposes.

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