Despite making deep cuts to its operating budget in recent years, the local high school in Blue Hill is moving forward with a $2.1 million facelift project.
The demolition of part of its gymnasium building and creation of a new entrance with a bus lane is being paid for through a separate funding source restricted to that use, according to officials at George Stevens Academy, a private school that functions as the local high school for several Blue Hill-area towns. The academy led a specific $2.1 million fundraising campaign for the project that entered its final public phase this spring.
The “Gateway Project” broke ground last month and is set to continue through the summer.
The project is intended in part to reduce traffic congestion on High Street. It also aims to create a safe, welcoming, clearly identifiable main entrance — which it has lacked — and to improve navigation around campus, according to the school.
The groundbreaking came shortly after the school finalized its second round of staffing cuts in about three years in the face of declining enrollment and long-running budget challenges. GSA is a private school where seven surrounding towns without their own public high schools have traditionally sent students through school choice.
The academy started asking those towns for additional funding above what the state requires beginning in 2019, and last year floated the idea of guaranteed enrollment contracts in exchange for an end to those requests. Penobscot and Surry voted not to fund the additional requests for the first time this year.
About a third of high school age students in the seven sending towns now attend other area institutions, and the overall youth population on the peninsula is declining.
Funding for the gateway project campaign is in an account specifically designated to go toward the project, according to school spokesperson Amy Strother. Money is restricted and separate from the school’s operating budget, which funds salaries, programs and day-to-day operations.
That means the school’s board considered staffing decisions and the gateway project independently, she said.
In the public phase of fundraising, a private donor also matched donations up to $60,000, according to the school.
The new entrance is the first major project amid larger plans for campus upgrades.
This summer, the west wing of the school’s gym building is being demolished and insulated panels with framing installed on the exterior wall, which should increase its structural integrity.
It will take out about 6,800 feet of space that has “reached the end of its useful life,” according to the school. The changes aim to reduce long-term maintenance costs and direct resources to facilities that “most directly serve students and programs.”
A new bus lane with a crosswalk will curve in front of the new entrance, according to architectural drawings on file at the Blue Hill town office.
Despite the planned upgrades, the school has had two rounds of layoffs in the past 3 years.
In 2023, the school eliminated a dozen positions, turned seven full-time roles into part-time ones and reduced some student programs, also attributed largely to declining enrollment.
In December 2025, the academy announced another $325,000 in cuts would come before the next academic year began as enrollment had continued to decline. Its student population had shrunk by 75 since 2023, down to about 200.
The school announced in May that it cut its French teacher and program, which the school attributed to declining enrollment; some students asked the board to save the program, the online news site The Rising Tide reported.
That was the only program eliminated in the two rounds of funding cuts.
GSA also cut three full-time positions this year by eliminating two of five unspecified full-time executive leadership positions and offering voluntary retirement to several unidentified employees.
Those changes came in the wake of the unexpected departure of its head of school, Dan Welch, after two years in the role.
“This work was difficult,” Welch and board chair Deb Ludlow said in a joint May statement. “It required honest conversations about enrollment, programs, and how we organize ourselves. But it was warranted, and the result is a clearer path forward.”
GSA restructured other roles, cutting its number of department heads in half. Changes included combining its athletic director job with the dean of students role, admissions with advancement and communications, and marketing with career and technical education.
