FARMINGTON — After serving the Farmington area school system for nearly 33 years, David Leavitt, director of support services, is leaving to become manager of support services in RSU 54 in the Skowhegan area.

His last day with Regional School Unit 9 is Dec. 19.

The Wilton resident has overseen several school building construction projects, including the new Mallett School and Mt. Blue Campus in Farmington.

He started as a mechanic in the Transportation Department and worked his way up to become director of support services, which covers custodians, bus drivers and facilities management.

He oversaw the installation of alternative energy heating sources, including pellet boilers, at several schools. He also led the drive to buy four propane buses this year. All were an effort to save the district money.

He also monitors all of the controls of the schools and other district buildings from a laptop.

He also required new custodian hires to get bus driver licenses, with a shortage of bus drivers throughout the state.

In the Skowhegan-area system, he will oversee food services, facilities and transportation and have three directors reporting to him.

RSU 9 directors gave Leavitt a round of applause at two different times at Tuesday’s meeting in recognition for all he has done for the 10-town district.

Director Mark Prentiss of Industry congratulated Leavitt on his new position and the opportunity ahead of him.

“Thank you for everything you have done,” he said. “I’ve known you for a long time and you have done an incredible job.”

Superintendent Tom Ward said that in all of his 38 years in education, he has never seen an individual give so much to a school district as Leavitt has.

The district has a pretty good interim plan until a new person is hired, Ward said.

The board opted to stay with a director of support services position instead of changing back to a director of transportation and a director of buildings and grounds.

Ward said he and Leavitt had a discussion on the pros and cons of the positions. If they went with two directors they would need to have the right people in the position, he said.

Separate directors didn’t work well in the past because they shared the same people, custodians and bus drivers, Leavitt said.

The district has a transportation specialist, Richard Joseph, who works with Leavitt and they work well together, Leavitt said. Hopefully, the board will not be trying to manage two construction projects at the same time, he said.

The Mallett School and the Mt. Blue Campus projects, which saw the renovation and addition to the high school and Foster Career and Technical Education Center, were done at the same time.

Ward said he would advertise for a support services director and, depending on the pool of applicants, he may have to come back to the board to divide the position in two, he said.

dperry@sunjournal.com