The remote Washington County town of Topsfield voted Thursday to close its five-student school, opting to send a shrinking student population elsewhere.
Residents voted 42 to 18 to shutter the East Range II School after high costs began to drive students from out of town elsewhere, bringing the number of students down from 25 in 2023 to the small total it has today. Turnout was robust in a town with only about 175 residents and 130 registered voters.
School district officials projected that the school, which had once served pre-K through eighth grade but would have been left only with pre-K through early elementary school students, would teach no more than seven students at a time over the next five school years. They also expected it would cost nearly $500,000 per year to keep the school open.
“I had no idea how the vote was going to go,” Eastern Maine Area School System superintendent Amanda Belanger said Friday. “I’m glad that a decision has been made and that we can move forward.”
The school board will finalize the closure plan and weigh what to do about the staff at East Range, at a meeting on May 7. The school would have likely had only one full-time teacher working there next year. That teacher, Paula Johnson, said she wasn’t sure what she would do if the school closed. She has worked there for 11 years.
Students will now likely be bused from Topsfield to schools in Princeton or Baileyville, about 30 minutes south. East Range will close at the end of this school year. After that, the town will take over the property.
It’s not clear what will become of the building. At an April meeting to discuss the future of the school, some residents were already speculating about whether it could turn into a senior center or similar community facility.
The result of Thursday’s vote was not unexpected. Many residents at the April meeting said they could not afford the taxes required to keep the school open. They will still have to pay for maintenance of the building but that cost is expected to be much lower than the cost of maintaining the school.
Taxpayers will also have to continue to pay for students, but the cost of busing kids out of town is also expected to be much lower than maintaining the local school.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.