NORTH ANSON -- For the second time in the past three months the question of closing Central Elementary School in New Portland is on the school board agenda.

Directors of School Administrative District 74 are scheduled to meet on the topic and other issues at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Carrabec Community School.

Kenneth Smith, superintendent of the combined administration of SAD 74 and SAD 13 in Bingham, said closing the school in New Portland would save SAD 74 towns $261,000 per year in staffing and other expenses including fuel and electricity costs.

With a total of 18 students at the school, the spending amounts to about $14,000 per year, per student and next year will be even worse, Smith said. Enrollment last year was 26 students.

Projected enrollment is only 11 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 5 next year in New Portland.

All sixth-graders in the district now go to the Carrabec Community School.

SAD 74 directors Wednesday night will first discuss closing the school at the end of the 2008-09 academic year, then vote either "yea" or "nay" on the matter.

The language of the motion, if closure is approved by a majority of school board members, would say that Central Elementary School is "unnecessary and unprofitable." Smith would then be required to file a plan of action with the office of the commissioner of education.

But, Smith added, the matter will not be over.

"In the end, voters will decide at referendum," Smith said. "That could be in the spring."

The vote would be taken in each of the SAD 74 towns of Anson, Embden, New Portland and Solon.

In 2007, then-Superintendent Regina Campbell, who is now shared assistant superintendent with SAD 13, as well as food service director, adult education director for both districts and principal of Carrabec Community School, said that with the influx of jobs at a new water bottling plant in New Portland and Back Yard Farms in nearby Madison, more families would be moving to the area.

Residents were told then that the schools would remain open, and they did.

Then in April of this year, a vote on a restructuring plan that would have closed both schools ran into a procedural bump when a board member pointed out that the panel had previously voted against closing the schools.

When a motion to rescind that earlier vote failed by a 7-4 margin, action on the restructuring plan was halted.

That result pleased a crowd of roughly 100 people in the Carrabec High School cafeteria, most of whom were in favor of keeping Central Elementary and Embden Elementary schools open.

Smith said Monday that the Embden school is not on the discussion list for closure this time around.

He said current enrollment there is 65 children, with about 50 expected next year.

Smith said school board members at their last meeting asked to put the matter of closing the New Portland school back on the agenda. He said the intention of previous votes was simply to leave the school open this year and revisit the matter later.

If the school is to close after this year, students would be bused next year -- 2009-10 -- to either the Embden school or the Solon school, depending on where they live, Smith said.

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534 ext. 342

dharlow@centralmaine.com