Dear Editor:

It’s wonderful that the Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor select boards have agreed to meet with school leadership and interested people to review other options for our local CSD elementary and high schools. We all agree that our schools need some renovation. But what is truly needed? What can our towns afford? What makes sense in light of our population?

Consider that the CSD's enrollment study completed in May 2022 predicted that our BB/BBH school enrollment will continue to decline over the next 10 years. It also predicted there will be an increase in students in tuition-paying towns.

Consider that 36% of middle school students came from tuition-paying towns this past year. BBH’s middle school enrollment was 17% and BB's was 47%. BB/BBH subsidized the education for the other towns’ students because the state set their tuition rate significantly lower than our true cost.

We are not guaranteed and should not assume tuition-paying towns will send students to our school for 25 years.

Does it make sense for our towns to enlarge our elementary school when our student population is declining and predicted to decline? Why do the middle school grades need to be located in the elementary school?

It's time to discuss the answers to these questions and focus on other options before we commit to 25 years of huge debts.

Denise Griffin

Boothbay Harbor