LINCOLN – SAD 67 will make a serious push to lure students from Lowell into the district, board members said Wednesday.

Superintendent Lawrence Coughlin will meet today with Town of Lowell Withdrawal Committee Chairman John Tarleton to determine exactly what information Tarleton needs to consider SAD 67 as a place to send its 34 students next year. Tarleton’s group wants the town to withdraw from SAD 31.

An ad hoc committee that will represent SAD 67 to Lowell will also meet Jan. 12 to discuss completing a proposal for the withdrawal committee’s consideration, board member Sarah Crockett said.

The prize: another $175,000 in tuition revenue the Lowell students represent.

“That’s money that taxpayers here won’t have to pay,” Coughlin said after the board of directors meeting. “And those folks, too [in Lowell], are excited about coming here.”

Lowell wants out of SAD 31 because of high costs, although dissatisfaction with the education offered at SAD 31 was found in a survey that secession advocates circulated to residents last summer, Tarleton has said.

Tarleton has said that because state laws allow SADs to tax residents at 100 percent of their property valuations, Lowell residents pay about $8,700 for each of the 34 students it sends to schools in SAD 31.

The district’s other towns – Burlington, Edinburg, Enfield, Howland, Maxfield and Passadumkeag – pay much less, Tarleton said.

At SAD 67, Lowell students will pay $6,100 in tuition costs, which are generally lower than school taxes, and pupils will be charged $5,200 each per year to attend kindergarten through eighth grade, Coughlin said.

Coughlin said that SAD 31’s high school tuition is $6,800 and its kindergarten-through-eighth-grade tuition is about $5,400, respectively. Lee Academy’s kindergarten-through-eighth-grade tuition is about the same as SAD 31’s, Coughlin said, while its high school tuition is $7,500.

Transportation to SAD 67, which serves students from Chester, Lincoln and Mattawamkeag, will be free of charge if 20 or more Lowell students opt to attend. If 80 percent of Lowell’s students opt to attend SAD 67, tuition costs could decrease, Coughlin said.

Board Chairman Don Worcester said he hopes Lowell students and parents will choose his district.

“If Lowell is, as they have said, not happy with the education their kids are getting, I feel we can offer a very good alternative in the area for them,” he said. “Locationwise, we’re very close to them, and we would not have to add to our infrastructure to accept these students.”

Under state law, the Department of Education and Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron must approve any withdrawal agreement between Lowell and SAD 31 before withdrawal can occur.

SAD 67 board members will review the proposal at their Jan. 19 meeting and hope to give it to Lowell soon afterward, Worcester said.