FARMINGTON — School summer vacation will come to an end for students in kindergarten through ninth grade in the 10-town school district, RSU 9, on Sept. 2 when it is time to start the new school year.

All students, except for those in pre-kindergarten, will attend school on Sept. 3, but the starting time will be one hour later than usual.

It is first of 34 late-arrival Wednesdays the RSU 9 Board of Directors approved in February for the 2014-15 school year.

School will begin one hour later than usual on those days, and supervision will be available for students whose parents have child-care conflicts, Superintendent Tom Ward said previously.

Buses will follow the same schedule as when there’s a one-hour delay to school, he said.

There are two more late-arrival Wednesdays scheduled for the month on Sept. 10 and Sept. 24. On Sept. 17, the week of Farmington Fair, students will have an early release day.

Pre-kindergarten students will begin school on Sept. 8, Ward said.

Field hockey players and cross-country athletes were practicing on the fields and around Mt. Blue campus Monday morning.

“I’m looking forward to going back to school,” said senior Aaron Willingham, 17, of Wilton, who is a cross-country athlete. “It is the second year in the new school.”

Mt. Blue High School and Foster Career and Technical Education Center underwent a three-year renovation and addition project that was completed last year. Adult education and college classes are also offered at the campus.

Late-arrival days are not the only difference people will see in schools this year.

All students in grade six will attend the Mt. Blue Middle School in Farmington to make it a sixth- through eighth-grade school.

With that change, it changes the grade structure of the elementary schools.

The Mallett School is now a pre-kindergarten through second-grade school. Third-graders will attend the Cascade Brook School in Farmington, which will house students in the third, fourth and fifth grades.

The Academy Hill School in Wilton is a second- through fifth-grade school, and Cushing School, also in Wilton, will be a pre-kindergarten through first-grade school.

Cape Cod Hill School in New Sharon is now a pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade school.

The school board made the changes to ease overcrowding at the lower grades and to give more opportunities to sixth-graders.

Sixth-graders will be divided into two communities, Redington and Kineo. They will join the seventh-grade communities of Katahdin and Sugarloaf, and eighth-grade communities of Bigelow and Saddleback. All communities are named after Maine mountains.

The sixth-graders will have their own block in the school. They will have a Blue and Gold block schedule, with core classes being 80 minutes long. They will be enrolled in a foreign language class, either French or Spanish, as well as health, art, general music and other offerings.

One of the items that will stay the same this year is breakfast and lunch prices.

Students who attend Mallett School should find the second floor of the building a lot cooler this school year. Insulation panels and commercial-size air conditioners were added during summer vacation to alleviate some of the overheating on that floor. The first floor of the school, built in 2011, is air conditioned.

dperry@sunjournal.com

RSU 9 school starting dates, times

First day of kindergarten through ninth grade is Sept. 2. Sept. 3 is a one-hour late-arrival day for grades kindergarten through 12. Pre-kindergarten starts Sept. 8.

School for high and middle school students runs from 7:50 a.m. to 1:50 p.m., and for elementary schools in Farmington, New Sharon and Wilton, a regular school day is from 8:45 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Breakfast and lunch prices

Kindergarten through grade five: fully paid lunch, $1.90, breakfast, $1.10.

Sixth through 12th grade: fully paid lunch, $2.15, breakfast, $1.25.

Reduced lunch prices at all levels is 40 cents and breakfast is free.

Adult lunch prices are $3.90 and breakfast is $2.10.