EAST MILLINOCKET – A small group of residents are looking to gauge public opinion on a proposed cooperative ice hockey program involving Schenck and Stearns high schools.

The group is circulating a petition asking for a non-binding referendum vote in East Millinocket on the issue in November. The group plans to collect more than the required 72 signatures and turn in the petition by Friday so the issue will be on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Kathy Bishop, one of about eight residents spearheading the petition drive, met with selectmen on Tuesday. “I still have students coming up to me inquiring about whether they can play hockey with Millinocket,” she said.

She said a lot of area students participate in the Millinocket Youth Hockey Association program. She said kids can play on the recreational teams until they are high school freshmen. Millinocket players can continue playing ice hockey because Stearns has a program, but Schenck does not so East Millinocket and Medway athletes can’t continue to play. She said a school survey indicated 19 students expressed an interest in the program.

Bishop said the group has been working for two years to provide a high school hockey program for local students.

Last December, the East Millinocket School Board approved a new program, but later reversed its decision by voting not to fund it. Bishop said the group later went back to the school board with a proposal in which the program would be 100 percent funded by the School Union 113 boosters club and private donations, but the board refused to reconsider it.

Bishop told selectmen that Superintendent Sandra MacArthur contacted her in May about a proposal for a cooperative hockey team, where private donations and the funds raised by the boosters group would go directly to the Millinocket School Department.

“The new proposal was a step in the right direction,” Bishop said.

Bishop said the problem with the proposal was that the Maine Principals’ Association would not approve a new cooperative ice hockey team established between a private booster club and a public school, but that both schools had to create it.

There are two cooperative hockey teams competing in Maine this winter. Houlton and Hodgdon high schools have a cooperative team, as do Winthrop and Hall-Dale of Farmingdale.

She said School Union 113’s share of the hockey team would be fully funded by the boosters and private donations for two years with no money required from local taxpayers.

Bishop said the non-binding referendum results would give the school board a sense of whether residents supported an ice hockey program. “The bottom line of the petition is to give students some clarification,” she said.

“The school board has already considered that proposal and has said no,” MacArthur said Wednesday.