STRONG — Strong residents face an upcoming vote on whether to leave Maine School Administrative District 58 and form an independent school unit, a move driven by efforts to protect their local school from potential closure.
A two-thirds majority vote Nov. 3 is required for Strong to withdraw from MSAD 58 and form its own single-town administrative unit. Proponents say the move is necessary to preserve local control over education, echoing concerns in nearby Kingfield, where voters are also deciding whether to leave the district.
“We really don’t want to lose the school in town,” Susan Pratt, a member of the Strong Withdrawal Committee and the MSAD 58 board of directors, said. “People are passionate about it.”
The withdrawal movement stems from an MSAD 58 board of directors vote in October 2025 to close Day Mountain Regional Middle School in Strong. That vote narrowly missed the required two-thirds weighted majority, falling short with 572 votes of the 598 needed. Within two days, organizers gathered enough signatures to initiate a withdrawal, and town residents subsequently voted 124-61 to start the official process.
“We saw our job as putting the best plan forward that we could,” Pratt said.
District leaders, withdrawal groups and an architectural firm hired by MSAD 58 agree the district maintains too much space for its shrinking enrollment. The decline reflects a national trend driving towns statewide to leave consolidated districts created in the late 1960s, Strong Select Board member Andrew Bracy said.
“This isn’t something new, or something that we’re trying to do to spite people,” Bracy said. “We’re approaching a crossroads here.”
Pratt described the withdrawal push as an effort to “rightsize,” a term local officials use for reallocating resources for fewer students.
Oak Point Associates, the architecture firm hired by the district, presented three facility options heading to the MSAD 58 board Thursday. One plan would close all three elementary schools and build a central facility at Mt. Abram High School, while two other options would close Phillips Elementary School and keep the Strong facility open as a middle school.
Despite options that keep the school open for now, the Strong Withdrawal Committee contends the district will eventually close the local facility as part of its consolidation efforts.
Bracy, a frequent attendee at MSAD 58 board meetings, said he fears the town could lose its school. Organizers did not launch the withdrawal effort out of malice toward the district, he added, but to regain local authority over education.
“There’s a lot of pride with the older generations that know the history,” Bracy said.
Local residents helped fund the original construction in the early 1950s through bake sales and apple drives, according to Bracy and Pratt. A major renovation in 1997 preserved just 8 feet of the external wall to avoid new construction regulations. That project also installed a gymnasium floor made entirely of wood milled in Strong, Pratt said.
In 2022, the facility became the district’s middle school, bringing fifth through eighth grade students from Phillips and Kingfield to Strong, while Strong’s youngest children are bused to neighboring towns. During an August withdrawal meeting, several residents advocated for keeping younger students in town. Pratt noted that some parents have already chosen to homeschool their children rather than send them outside the community.
Under the withdrawal agreement negotiated with MSAD 58 and approved by the board and state officials, Strong would gain control of its school building, classroom materials, fuel, furnishings, four school buses and 15 percent of audited district reserve funds.
Following a one-year transition period where students remain in their current schools, Strong’s prekindergarten through eighth grade students would attend school locally. High school students could choose between Mt. Abram High School, Mt. Blue High School in Regional School Unit 9 or Carrabec High School in Regional School Unit 74.
Tracked from the center of Strong, Mt. Abram sits closest at slightly more than 9 miles, while Mt. Blue and Carrabec are farther at nearly 14 and 20 miles, respectively. Students attending vocational programs at Foster Career and Technical Education Center in Farmington could continue their studies while taking academic classes at Mt. Blue or Mt. Abram. Students attending Carrabec would take vocational courses at Somerset Career & Technical Center in Skowhegan.
Strong would pay 105 percent of each receiving school’s per-student tuition rate.
Pratt and Bracy said they expect most students to remain at Mt. Abram. Some might choose Mt. Blue for specific programs at the larger school, Pratt said, while parents working east of Strong might prefer Carrabec.
If voters approve the creation of the Strong School Administrative Unit, or Strong SAU, on Nov. 3, parents of high school students would make their selection in January.
School boards approved the initial arrangements through memorandums of understanding.
If Strong leaves MSAD 58, formal contracts must replace those agreements to detail logistics like transportation — such as whether a Strong bus takes students directly to Mt. Blue or transfers them to an RSU 9 bus.
Finalizing the contracts is just one task facing the proposed five-member Strong SAU board.
If voters approve the transition Nov. 3, the board faces a tight timeline to organize, hire a superintendent and draft a budget before July 1, 2027. Voters could approve the budget at Strong’s regular town meeting in March, or during a special town meeting if the board needs additional time.
Pratt called the withdrawal proposal the best plan the committee could put forward after more than a year of work, though key details remain. Strong students now play sports through MSAD 58, for example, and the new district would need to arrange athletic participation.
The Strong Withdrawal Committee can handle initial transition work between the November vote and the election of a new school board, likely in early January, Pratt said. Strong set aside $75,000 for the withdrawal process in 2025 and has spent less than $2,000, primarily on legal review, leaving the remaining funds available to support the transition.
The committee does not view withdrawal as a “huge moneysaver,” Pratt said. The proposed $4.1 million budget is roughly $100,000 less than the $4.2 million Strong now pays MSAD 58.
Developing a district budget a year in advance was challenging, Pratt noted, but she believes the committee budgeted generously for potential expenses. The draft also excludes potential revenue sources, such as tuition from unorganized territory students.
The proposal allocates $200,000 toward building maintenance, starting with roof repairs, which Bracy identified as the primary structural need. A 2024 report by Bureau Veritas, a facility testing and inspection firm, estimated the school will need $6.4 million in repairs over the next 20 years, with similar capital needs identified across the district’s other facilities.
“It’s one of the better buildings in the district, is how we feel about it,” Bracy said.
Pratt said the committee is optimistic the plan will pass with the required two-thirds majority Nov. 3. Voters surpassed that threshold in 2025, when fewer than 200 residents cast ballots to initiate the withdrawal process. Strong expects turnout to double this year alongside state and national elections. If the proposal falls short of the two-thirds threshold, Strong cannot attempt another withdrawal for two years.
As in Kingfield, withdrawal committee members voiced concern that MSAD 58 could take on debt during that two-year period to fund its own facility rightsizing plan. Pratt expressed skepticism that the state would offer construction aid. “We don’t believe the state will fund anything,” Pratt said.
The town has scheduled a final public session for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20, at the town office to review the wording of the ballot question. Pratt and Bracy said the meeting should be brief because voters are expected to consider a single question.
The proposed withdrawal agreement is available online.
