A Bible-based hybrid school for homeschooling families is on its way to opening in Gouldsboro this fall.
Schoodic Academy intends to operate three days a week for students from kindergarten through eighth grade, partnering with their parents, and it hopes to add a high school as students grow.
Its mission is “To partner with families to cultivate the souls of their children so they grow in wisdom and virtue as we seek to love God and others in accordance with Proverbs 22:6,” according to its website.
That proverb reads: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
The school will use various Bible-based curriculums with a focus on reading, math, penmanship and the Constitution.
The academy is forming as some residents of Gouldsboro and surrounding towns have pushed back on their public school system in recent years, particularly around LGBTQ+ issues that have also sparked debate in other communities around the state.
In Sullivan-based RSU 24, which includes Gouldsboro, people have protested the inclusion of some LGBTQ-themed books in its libraries, attempted to recall a school board member and recently voted to roll back the district’s transgender student policy.
Increasing numbers of Mainers are also homeschooling their children, in some cases because they disagree with policies in their local schools.
Schoodic Academy’s board chair, Clay Savage, said Tuesday that the school is focused on the future and wants to provide a good education on the basics. Students will be instructed in both manuscript and cursive, according to Savage.
“We are trying to provide for parents and students a high quality education that has a great deal of meaning to it,” he said.
Savage, a former teacher and administrator in public schools, is also concerned by Maine’s drop in national public education rankings, and wants the academy to address that issue.
According to the 2025 KIDS COUNT Data Book, Maine recently dropped to among the 10 lowest-ranked states in the country in a report that evaluated measures including enrollment, graduation and testing data, although the state Department of Education has disputed some of that data.
Savage had previously been involved in efforts to pull two gender-focused books from local school library shelves, which he and others in a since-disbanded group had called pornographic. He did not want to discuss the past with a reporter on Tuesday, saying it was no longer relevant and he wanted instead to emphasize the positive intent of the new school.
While Schoodic Academy is Bible-focused and will primarily use a Bible-based homeschool curriculum, it is not denominational or teaching a particular doctrine, according to Savage.
The academy is renting a building from the Solid Rock Bible Baptist Church for five years with an option to buy, and is working on construction projects to prepare the site.
Gouldsboro’s planning board was set to review a site plan for the school on Tuesday night, according to a public notice.
The school’s website shows a fundraising campaign for $75,000 to finish projects it needs to complete before opening its new building. Those include a propane boiler, flooring, security doors, computers and printers.
It’s also fundraising for student sponsorships. Tuition is on a sliding scale based on the number of children a family enrolls in the school. It begins at $4,800 annually for one child and decreases by $300 for additional children.