Lots of things are going right at the Waldo County Technical Center, but its building is in trouble.
Enrollment is up at the school, which provides career and technical education to high school students across the entire county, even as it is trending downward in the county overall. And it is adding new training programs beyond those it already offers in disciplines ranging from auto repair to aquaculture to early childhood education.
But the school has outgrown its building, which is located in the town of Waldo. The building was constructed in 1975 and lacks a full sprinkler system, even though students there weld and use gasoline. Its roof needs replacing and the building doesn’t meet federal accessibility standards.
“Every day when I come in, I’m hoping that the power is on,” said Travis Wood, the school’s director. The building’s electrical system was put in 50 years ago. “We have to do something,” he said.
In recent weeks, the school’s leadership has held two public “visioning sessions” about Waldo Tech’s future — the third and final one is in Searsport on Wednesday. The sessions are focused not just on the future of Waldo Tech but also on what sort of a workforce and economy the county wants going forward.
School leaders have proposed several options for Waldo Tech including repairing and expanding the current building. But they are also putting forth a more ambitious plan: A regional ‘9-16’ school that would serve high school freshmen all the way through college to offer certificates as well as associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in some fields.
This school would be a once-in-a-generation opportunity, Wood said. It would solve a number of problems the county and its schools face by creating state-of-the-art facilities and new academic opportunities while also decreasing the number of aging buildings that need to be maintained even as student enrollment declines.
But it would also entail a monumental reorganization of Waldo County’s educational system, most notably it would require relocating and combining at least two of the county’s high schools.
Waldo Tech is one of eight groups of school districts, career and technical education centers, colleges and businesses from across the state that applied for funding through a Maine Department of Education pilot program last fall. The University of Maine and Eastern Maine Community College have signed onto Waldo Tech’s proposal. The pilot will fund one consolidated 9-16 school in the state, which Waldo Tech is envisioning would cost about $200 million.
Waldo Tech also has priced other options for renovating its existing facilities. It would cost $22 million to do the minimum — a sprinkler system, ADA compliance and a new roof. For about $44 million, the school could renovate its existing building and build an adjacent one. It would cost about $90 million to build an entire new school. Those funds would come from a bond put out to voters.
All of the eight applicants across Maine made it through the first round of proposals. Now they must submit a second application by the end of October.
Waldo Tech’s board will vote this month on whether to officially pursue the second phase of the grant application. After that, they will send out formal letters to each of the school districts asking them to sign on to the plan in the hopes that two high schools will agree. If the proposal were to be awarded funding by the state, voters would have to approve it for the project to move forward.
Demand for technical and career education in Waldo County is already strong, says Jessica Woods, who chairs the school’s board.
“We’ve had a net gain where overall our school populations are decreasing,” Woods said.
About a quarter of the students from Searsport Area High School, Belfast Area High School and Mount View High School attend programs at the school currently, Woods said.
Waldo Tech enrolls about 233 students, drawing from Waldo County’s four high schools — Mount View in Thorndike, Belfast Area High School, Searsport District High School and the Ecology Learning Center, a public charter high school in Unity.
Those students, mostly juniors and seniors, spend half of the day at their high school and the other half at Waldo Tech, though in the coming years the school will move toward a model where students will come every other day for a whole day.
A 9-16 school could address the county’s lack of access to higher education, says Woods. Waldo County is currently a “higher education desert” she says. Since the University of Maine’s Hutchinson Center closed in 2023, there is nowhere to access in-person higher education within the county.
If Waldo County were to build an integrated 9-16 school, students could pursue traditional high school academics there, or choose to also take part in career and technical education. Many of the college-level programs would be open to the broader community, including adults looking to get or finish their degrees.
Travis Wood said projections for a decade from now suggest that there will only be around 200 high school seniors in Waldo County. A consolidated school would be more cost-effective than trying to maintain several aging high schools operating under capacity.
“What do we have to do to better support the taxpayers of our county?” he said.
Breanna Bebb, a Waldo County Commissioner and parent of an elementary schooler, said the idea of a 9-16 school would bring a lot of opportunity to the county and deserves careful consideration.
“There’s a lot of upside to it,” she said. At the same time, she said that it would be important to find ways for communities that might lose their schools to find ways to continue to stay strong and vibrant.
“There’s pride in your local school, so there could be a lot of loss felt in that regard,” she said. “But at the same time, people are struggling with their local school budgets and they’re struggling with old buildings that need upkeep.”
Woods says that creating a combined grade 9-16 school is a chance for the county to design a school that meets its current and future needs.
“This is an opportunity for communities to choose to come together and create something that’s their own,” she said.
