CHARLESTON – Charleston officials learned last weekend that the town’s application for withdrawal from SAD 68 was no longer legally valid.

A state official said the town exceeded the time allowed for the process from start to finish.

“All we asked was for some help to come to the table in good faith to discuss the issues and this is what we got,” Richard Goodwin, chairman of the Charleston Withdrawal Committee, said Monday.

In his letter dated Feb. 24, Patrick Phillips, state deputy commissioner of education, wrote that after consulting with Assistant Attorney General Sarah Forster, he concluded that the lengthy delay that occurred in the withdrawal process far exceeded any reasonable interpretation of the Legislature’s intent. “Therefore, it is my opinion that the withdrawal process is no longer legally valid and must be restarted,” he wrote.

“It appears to me that the matter of Charleston’s withdrawal from SAD 68 is over and done with unless the residents of Charleston vote to start the process from the beginning,” SAD 68 Superintendent John Dirnbauer said Monday.

Bitter that SAD 68 closed the town’s small elementary school in 2002, Charleston residents voted to begin the withdrawal process and to work to reopen the school

A local Withdrawal Committee arrived at a plan more than 12 months ago and submitted it to the Department of Education, but the plan was called incomplete. Town officials were told they had to give detailed information about the academic programs that would be provided at the local school, how the school would be operated and what the financial settlement would be with SAD 68, among other information.

Goodwin said getting that information required a meeting with SAD 68 officials. He said SAD 68 officials were asked by Charleston officials on four different occasions to sit down with them to negotiate to no avail.

Dirnbauer said Monday that directors would have met with Charleston officials had they provided the board with the information requested of them by the state. The board could not make any decisions without knowing the answers to all questions relating to the withdrawal plan, he said. “That [information] was never forthcoming from the people of Charleston,” he said.

The superintendent said those Charleston parents whose children now attend the Morton Avenue Elementary School in Dover-Foxcroft appear to be happy with the quality of education the children are receiving.

But according to Goodwin, the fight is not over. “It’s not a done issue,” he said. “I’m hoping the people still have enough interest [to start over]. He said he expected residents would be asked at the March 13 annual town meeting if they wish to continue the withdrawal effort.