PARIS – The SAD 17 board learned Monday night that the district received a grant of $35,000 and one for up to $250,000.

The larger one will go toward the proposed Paris elementary school construction project. The Public Utilities Commission and Department of Education will provide the money.

SAD 17 grant writer John Parsons said the PUC is putting up 50 percent of the grant to design and implement a high performance school building.

“The matching funds provided by DOE is toward other aspects,” Parsons said. “One of the goals is to have a more efficient and less expensive school to operate.”

He recalled times in his youth where classrooms might have been hot or humid, noisy or had bad lighting, all possible distractions for teachers and students.

Parsons said he envisions a cost effective school as providing high levels of acoustic, thermal and visual comfort; large amounts of natural daylight; superior indoor air quality; and a safe and secure environment.

He said the building would be cost effective to operate and maintain by employing energy analysis tools that optimize energy performance.

Parsons said the real cost savings in such a building would be realized in the operations and maintenance costs, which he projected would be much less than existing buildings.

The $35,000 would be a technical information grant, used to improve teachers’ abilities to use technology in instruction.

He said the laptop computers that seventh-graders received as part of former Gov. Angus King’s statewide program was one of the impetuses to seek the grant.

Parsons said the exact use of the funding has not been determined yet.

In other business, the board was in executive session for the majority of the evening and decided during separate hearings to expel five students from Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

Superintendent Mark Eastman said four students were expelled for being deliberately disobedient or disorderly. One student was expelled for possessing, furnishing or trafficking in a scheduled drug.