DIXFIELD — The Regional School Unit 10 board Monday night hired seven staffers, including several high school graduates from the district, while some special education positions remain unfilled.

Most students in the 12-town district return to classes Wednesday.

Special Services Director Clarissa Fish said it is unusual to have the special education positions still vacant.

“This is pretty alarming. We haven’t seen this in a long time,” she said.

Meanwhile, special education teachers will help fill the gap.

Among the new hires with local ties to the district is Kyle Rines who graduated from Buckfield Junior-Senior High School in 2009 and from the University of Maine at Farmington. He will teach English/Language Arts at Buckfield Junior-Senior High School.

French teacher Marie Russell graduated from Mountain Valley High School in Rumford and UMF. She has served the district as an educational technician and as a long-term substitute.

Jenn Bolduc, physical science teacher at the Rumford high school, is also a graduate of that school. She had previously taught Spanish at Dirigo High School in Dixfield.

Other new hires include Cortney Lefebrve, a graduate of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris, who is a half-time business teacher and athletic director at Buckfield Junior-Senior High School. She will fill in as administrator whenever Principal George Reuter is out of the building.

Also hired were Heidi Chartier, a former life skills educational technician in the district, as special education teacher at Dirigo Middle School; Gretchen Fall as a eighth-time social worker at the Rumford high school; and Laurel Castonguay as the educational technician III librarian at Dirigo Elementary School in Peru. She will be supervised by certified librarians in the district.

Positions still to be filled include an art teacher at the Buckfield school, a literacy specialist for Dirigo Middle School in Dixfield, a grade one teacher at Dirigo Elementary School, two elementary teachers at Meroby Elementary School in in Mexico, half-time music and math teachers and an educational technician.

Superintendent Craig King said district enrollment as of Monday night is 2,699,  which may require an additional elementary teacher because enrollment is up in lower grades and down slightly in upper grades.

He said enrollment for pre-kindergarten is up substantially.

The board elected longtime Vice Chairman Bruce Ross of Dixfield as chairman. He succeeds Jerry Wiley of Buckfield, who declined to run again but was elected vice chairman.