The Presque Isle-based MSAD 1 intends to close the nearly 70-year-old Zippel Elementary School and consolidate students into the district’s other facilities, Superintendent Ben Greenlaw announced in a letter late last week.
The closure, which Greenlaw attributed to declining enrollment, aging infrastructure and a lack of space to provide full-day kindergarten and special education services to young students, would take effect this fall if approved.
It would shift grades two through five to Presque Isle Middle School and grades seven and eight to Presque Isle High School, while saving approximately $150,000 annually, Greenlaw said.
“The district also has a large number of underused spaces at Presque Isle High School and a smaller number at Presque Isle Middle School,” Greenlaw wrote. “At the same time, the district is near maximum capacity at Pine Street Elementary School and Zippel Elementary School.”
In order to become official, the closure needs approval from the commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, the MSAD 1 Board of Directors and in a referendum by the communities the district serves — Presque Isle, Mapleton, Castle Hill, Chapman and Westfield.
The board of directors is expected to vote on the closure in March, Greenlaw said Monday. If approved, the district would go to the Department of Education for approval, then to a late spring public hearing before a district referendum vote coinciding with the Maine primary election in June.
“I feel like it’s an opportunity,” Zippel Principal Chris Hallett said. “That’s why I’ve been trying to spin it in a positive direction, because change can be tough, and we’ve got deep roots here at Zippel. … I have staff here that went to school here as students and have taught here for 40 years.”
The district would use the savings created by closing Zippel to pay for the additional staff needed to support full-day kindergarten. MSAD 1 is the only district in Aroostook County not to offer that programming, Greenlaw said.
The district’s board of directors previously approved full-day kindergarten for the 2016-17 school year, but the program was cut after two failed validation referendums in the summer of 2016.
Pine Street Elementary, which currently serves pre-K through grade two students, would host the kindergarten and expanded special education services in the space opened by moving grade two to Presque Isle Middle School.
Special education for children aged 3 to 5 in the district is presently handled by Child Development Services, a state agency. But legislation passed in 2024 put the responsibility on school districts to run the services by 2028.
The middle school — which will be renamed as it transitions into an elementary school — is the most modern of the district’s schools. It underwent a major expansion and renovation in 2005 as Presque Isle combined two middle schools.
Zippel, on the other end of the spectrum, is not the oldest. It opened in 1960, Pine Street Elementary opened in 1954, and Presque Isle High School, which has seen several expansions over the decades, first welcomed students in 1949.
The district chose to close Zippel instead of Pine Street, because the latter is a single-story building, has more green space, and is already home to the grade levels where SAD 1 is expanding programming, Greenlaw said.
“When you compare the two, Pine’s about five years older, but I think when you get into that, you’re saying buildings built in the 1950s, they’re both old,” he said. “We felt like the one level piece better met the needs of our students.”
In conjunction with the closure, the district plans significant renovations at the high school and middle school to accommodate the 250 new students. The Zippel playground, which abuts an entrance to the high school, will become a parent pickup and dropoff area. The equipment from that playground will be relocated near an auxiliary soccer field at Presque Isle Middle School.
The district will add several new bathrooms to the high school for middle school students.
The remodeling efforts and staff additions will cost around $1 million, SAD 1 estimates, but it hopes eliminating the Zippel operating costs will outweigh that expense within a few years.
“It’s going to cost us some money on the front end, but we think after probably four years or so, we will have realized the savings for those one-time expenses,” Greenlaw said.
The move to close Zippel is a precursor to MSAD 1’s ultimate goal: building a regional high school in central Aroostook County to consolidate the students of several nearby districts.
Citing an 8% decline in enrollment since 2012 and an estimated $40 million to $50 million in infrastructure investments needed at the high school over the next 20 years, Greenlaw is leading the charge to secure funding through a Department of Education pilot program to combine high schools in Presque Isle, Caribou and Fort Fairfield.
The schools submitted the first part of the application for the school, which would also include vocational and high education centers, in October 2025. The second part of the application is due this fall.
“Reorganization and consolidation is something that we have control over,” Greenlaw said. “And the need is immediate, as opposed to a regionalized effort, which is a five- to 10-year plan that we have a lot less control over.”