REGION — At the June 14 school board meeting, Superintendent Dave Murphy spoke on a pilot program that is in the works with the University of Poitiers in Poitiers, France for the upcoming school year.

“We have had several conversations with the school and things seem to be moving in a positive direction,” Murphy said.

Murphy said if things work out SAD 44 would be the first American school system to have a partnership with the university.

“We are looking at having people begin to apply for a visa and then the person would be based at Crescent Park and shared between grade levels for the first year acting as a teaching assistant,” Murphy said. “We would then look at how that goes and build a program from that.”

In other news, board members also took time to reflect on the FY 21′ school year, one of the more challenging ones in recent memory.

“We were able to offer a K-12, five-day a week program. Nobody else could really offer this,” Murphy said. “There were some speed bumps, but the staff worked really hard to get those ironed out and at the end of the day I think they were successful.”

Murphy said at the start of the school year around 80 percent of students were attending classes in-person and by the end of the year around 90 percent were back in school.

The meeting was the last for members Martha McLean (Greenwood), Jamie Hastings (Bethel) and Sarah DeCato (Bethel).