BUCKFIELD — The Regional School Unit 10 board of directors approved a budget of $30.95 million for the fiscal year 2022-23 during their board meeting on Monday.

The budget is an average of 1.986% increase in taxpayer assessments for residents of the district’s towns. It is slightly more than a $1 million increase from the current fiscal year’s budget, which ends June 30.

Informational meetings about the budget will be held on May 25 at Buckfield Junior-Senior High School and on June 1 at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, both at 6:30 p.m.

Following the informational meetings, a budget validation referendum vote will be held on June 14 in each of the district’s towns of Buckfield, Hanover, Hartford, Mexico, Roxbury, Rumford and Sumner.

Buckfield Junior-Senior High School track and field team members, from left, Brady Trenoweth, Giulia Battistella, Roger ‘Taz’ Keough, teacher Annette Caldwell and Cameron Durgin request a retreat for the team at the RSU 10 board of directors meeting Monday at the high school. The team is planning the retreat at the high school in mid-May to celebrate a successful season. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times

In other business, Superintendent Deb Alden told the board that coronavirus cases are once again on the rise in the district and that the schools’ COVID-19 cases totaled 18 as of last Friday, April 29.

“For whatever reason, (cases are) centered around many staff members at Rumford Elementary School, and to the point where we are not opening school (May 3) in that one building; we don’t have enough staff,” Alden said. She also said that the school could not even instruct students by remote learning due to the lack of available teachers.

“So, we’re hoping that we can have school on Wednesday,” she said.

In another matter, discussions on a student dress code policy by the board of directors during their meeting April 11 were not continued during Monday’s meeting. According to Alden, the board’s policy committee will meet May 16 to review the dress code and on another date following that, the board of directors will once again review the matter at one of their meetings.

Some changes to be reviewed include allowing “no more than two inches of midriff/torso showing,” whereas the original policy had no allowance for revealing the torso area. Other revisions stated that “the lowest part of the neckline of shirts must meet the top of the armpit; sides of shirts must meet the armpit,” and that “shorts and/or skirts must fully always cover the butt.”

TRIP TO EUROPE

The board of directors approved a 10-day trip to Europe for Buckfield Junior-Senior High School students and others in 2024. Special Education Teacher Zach Reinstein and school librarian Maria Reinstein gave the board an overview of the trip, saying it would take place in April 2024.

According to the Reinsteins, the trip will leave from Portland and arrive in Barcelona, Spain, where the group will travel by bus to the South of France where they will visit Provence and Nice.

“And from there we go to Monaco and then travel into Florence of Italy where we (will) see sights I think will really catch students’ attention to things they’ve heard of, like the … Tower of Pisa is there, and then we’re headed to Rome, (where we’ll see) the Colosseum and Vatican City and the Sistine Chapel,” Zach Reinstein said.

The ten-day trip costs $3,500 per person if they are enrolled by the end of May and it is available to students in grades 6 and up.

Also, the board approved a retreat for the high school track team to be held overnight at the school in mid-May. Representing their team at the board meeting were Brady Trenoweth, Giulia Battistella, Roger ‘Taz’ Keough and Cameron Durgin, along with teacher Annette Caldwell. The purpose of the retreat is “to celebrate a successful season,” and “to bring the team together before we go into regionals and states” the members said. The retreat will include a cooking challenge and outdoor events with team games, according to their schedule listing.