Lewiston Middle School placed in the top 10 for Maine schools in need of construction funding, but that ranking may not be high enough for the state to foot the bill for a new school.

The Maine Department of Education recently released its priority list of major capital school construction projects. Out of 95 applicants, Lewiston Middle School placed 10th, the highest for any school in Androscoggin, Franklin or Oxford counties.

Given its ranking, Lewiston Superintendent Jake Langlais said Wednesday it is unlikely Lewiston will receive funding from the state for a new middle school during this round.

“The number of projects done in the past have not reached 10,” Langlais said. “I don’t anticipate a call saying, ‘we’re going to rebuild your school.'”

Langlais said he expects only the top seven projects to receive funding. In the most recent round, in 2019, the state funded nine projects.

The number of schools in need of construction funds is extensive. Eileen King, executive director on the Maine School Superintendents Association, said last fall that 504 schools were built prior to the 1990s, with 243 of those schools built prior to the 1960s.

The No. 1 school on this year’s replacement list is Dike-Newell Elementary School in Bath. The school was built in 1963 and built an addition in 1981, but an arsonist set fire to the school in June 2022 that destroyed the new addition. The school has been closed since the fire.

Dr. Levesque Elementary and Wisdom Middle/High School in St. Agatha placed second and Loranger Memorial School in Old Orchard Beach was third on the list.

Lewiston Middle School was built in 1931 and served as the high school until September 1973 when it was turned into the middle school. The front entrance was expanded around 2013. The school has undergone upgrades to its boilers and the air circulation system, Langlais said.

The biggest problem now is overcrowding.

“The idea we shared with the state was if we either renovated or rebuilt the building, we could take sixth-graders out of the elementary schools and have two 6-7-8 schools,” Langlais said. “The benefit of that is to allow spacing within a growing community across the board all the way up to grade 8.”

While there is still a slight chance the middle school may get funding, Langlais said he expects to apply again in four years. The review process by the state will take up to a year.

The middle school will not simply move up the list for the next round of funding. All projects will again be evaluated and ranked. Langlais said Lewiston could slip lower, depending on the needs of other schools in the state.

“What happens to a building in almost a decade is pretty drastic,” Langlais said. “A number of schools in the state have faced some challenges because they landed just shy. A lot of buildings can have issues around the state.

“We’ll continue to maintain it,” he added. “We did acquire 287 Main St. because we’re going to have capacity issues. We’re continuing to seek funds outside of Lewiston to the best of our abilities to try to make something happen. It’s been a challenge because we haven’t been able to secure any big grants. We’ll keep trying.”

Lewiston also sought funding for Montello Elementary School, which was ranked 24th, three spots behind East Auburn Community School. Walton School in Auburn ranked 31st.

Auburn sought funding for seven of its schools; five of them finished in the bottom half of the rankings, including Park Avenue Elementary School, which ranked 94th out of 95 applicants.

The highest ranked schools outside the Twin Cities were Minot Consolidated School and Hartford-Sumner Elementary School, in 40th and 43rd, respectively.