BREWER – Superintendent Daniel Lee told Brewer High School district trustees on Tuesday that he should know by the end of the month what size the city’s new school will be.

Lee is scheduled to travel to Augusta later this month to meet with Maine Department of Education personnel and one question that should be answered is if Brewer will build a prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade school or something smaller.

“We’ll get some guidance from them,” he told trustees, who govern construction and maintenance of school buildings in Brewer. “We have to resolve if it’s going to be a k-eight or k-five.”

Brewer school leaders are advocating a new, combined elementary-middle school to replace four aging elementary schools and a middle school, all built between 1926 and 1962, but need state DOE approval to move forward.

The State Board of Education approved 13 school construction projects in August 2005, with the top six to acquire funds in 2008 and the remaining seven, with Brewer’s State Street School second on the list, set to receive funds in 2009.

The state would like to limit the project to only an elementary school, but is comparing renovation costs against new construction costs for all five schools.

As part of the process, Brewer school leaders also are looking for land sized between 10 and 20 acres to build the proposed school. A combined elementary-middle school would require sports fields and thus would require more land, adding to the costs.

“A k-eight [school] would solve every problem we’ve got,” trustee Alan Kochis said at the meeting.

Since advertising began in October, more than 20 people have approached the school department with property offers, Lee said.

The site of Pendleton Street School, built in 1957 and closed in June 2005 because of problems with the roof, is another area that is under consideration, but replacing a track and soccer field now at the site is a costly concern, Lee said.

The timeline to build a new school is lengthy, but without the size determined, a portion of the work is at a standstill.

“I’m nervous,” Lee said. “We need to get going.”

The hope is to open Brewer’s new school in 2010.