FARMINGTON — The Regional School Unit 9 board of directors met Feb. 25 to address staffing updates, budget revisions, and a progress report on the Bjorn Center Culinary Classroom. Superintendent Christian Elkington updated the board about the scaled-back equipment plan for the Bjorn Center Culinary Classroom, a move that will save the district an estimated $70,000.

In Elkington’s report, he formally introduced Kathleen Joseph as the new Robotics Coach at Mt. Blue High School and Craig Collins as the Varsity football coach. He also acknowledged the resignations of Katie-Jean Clement, a physical education teacher at W.G. Mallett School/Cape Cod Hill School and Melissa Williams, director of Foster Career and Technical Education Center. In addition, the district announced the retirements of Joan Gilbert, food service worker at Mt. Blue High School and Tracy Williams, principal of W.G. Mallett School.

Elkington then discussed the district’s final budget for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief [ESSER] funds, commending part-time grant specialist Deb Lajoie. “I want to take a moment to thank Deb Lajoie, our part-time grant’s specialist, in the district office for her outstanding work in helping us follow-through with the reporting and documenting procedures that the Maine Department of Education expected and implemented,” he said. “We were able to support students, staff and families because of Deb’s knowledge, expertise, and tireless focus on details. We spent all but less than 1% [0.43% to be precise] because of her follow-through.”

He added, “We did a great job spending the ESSER funds to get it down less than half a percent of being able to follow the plans that we had drawn over the last three years.”

Elkington also shared a letter from the Maine Department of Education explaining an adjustment to RSU 9’s pre-K subsidy allocation for the 2025 fiscal year. DOE School Finance Coordinator Donna Tiner wrote, “When the FY 25 subsidy allocation was calculated in December 2024, we included estimated counts for the Pre-K program in your district. The FY 25 Subsidy allocation for RSU 9 included 30 estimated Pre-K students and 86 actual Pre-K students for a total of 116.”

Elkington pointed out that this type of revision is not unusual. “This can happen any year and did last year, as we need to share with the state an estimate each year,” he said. “Our remaining subsidy will be reduced by $108,432.02 or the amount per student the state had initially estimated they would be sending us.”

Elkington was asked about the district’s capacity for pre-K. “We can take 16 students per class,” he noted. “We have six full-time teachers, so 96. We could take some more. The program at Cape Cod Hill School is a community-based program that can also take 16 pre-kindergarten students, so upward of 112. If we have more students, we can take them but would have to add staffing.”

In his final update, Elkington detailed the progress on the new Bjorn Center Culinary Classroom at Mt. Blue Middle School. Having addressed safety questions from the Fire Marshal’s office, the district can now order equipment. “We won’t be installing stoves or allowing anything to be fried as the expense for commercial hoods and infrastructure [several hundred thousand dollars] was just too high,” he explained. “We instead will be using a convection oven. For our base equipment needs this will mean an expense reduction and savings of $72,000. Changes to the curriculum menu will be minor and so our students will still be able to have the strong experience Principal Black and his staff had been planning for.”

Elkington expanded on the new plan further: “For what we need to accomplish and work with kids using a convection oven, it’s not going to really change too many of the recipes that our kids would be able to do,” he said. “The rest of the kitchen will be outfitted with all of the bells and whistles that we would need, so I don’t think it’s going to really be too much of a program change.”

Later in the meeting, student representative Addie Colello shared some uplifting news about the Nordic Ski Team. “It was extremely cold the first day, and we used face tape to avoid frostbite,” she said of a recent event. “We got the sportsmanship banners for both teams, and we won; it was a very fun time.” Mt. Blue’s Nordic ski teams dominated the Class A championships at Black Mountain, with the Cougars taking both boys and girls titles. The boys placed three of the top four finishers in the freestyle pursuit, while the girls team boasted five skiers in the top 12.

Beyond these financial and infrastructural updates, Elkington noted that required staff training for Title IX compliance is slated for mid-March. “We will complete those before or after the workshop day March 14,” he said. He also mentioned that updated policies from a year ago may need additional revisions in the coming school year.

The next board of directors meeting is scheduled for March 11 at 6:30 p.m. at the Mt. Blue Campus in Farmington.