HOLDEN – There is room at Bucksport High School for some SAD 63 students, but not all, Bucksport Superintendent Judy Lucarelli told the local school board at a special meeting Wednesday on school consolidation.

Lucarelli made a pitch for a possible partnership or high school tuition contract between Bucksport and SAD 63, which comprises Holden, Eddington and Clifton, during her consolidation presentation at Holbrook Middle School.

“We definitely are interested in a partial tuition contract,” she said to the SAD 63 board and 26 residents in attendance. “The state will be looking at that. They want to ensure that every student is guaranteed enrollment in a high school.”

She added later: “We have no admission requirements, if they come on the bus they’re in school. We would take anybody that you sent.”

Maine’s new school consolidation reorganization law, which passed with the state budget in June, requires that most school units reorganize into larger, more efficient systems.

School departments statewide have until Aug. 31 to file a formal letter of intent that indicates with which communities they are interested in partnering. That deadline is fast approaching, Lucarelli said.

“By the end of next week we must submit a letter to the commissioner,” she said.

The SAD 63 Consolidation Planning Committee decided Aug. 17 to recommend sending two letters of intent to the state Department of Education – one to pursue discussions with Brewer and one to pursue discussions about forming an RSU with a dozen local communities that have kindergarten through eighth-grade schools.

A major hurdle of forming the RSU is that each new RSU must include a publicly funded high school or have contracts that will ensure all high school students are provided an education.

“There is not one high school in this area – Brewer, Bangor, Hampden, Orono, Old Town – that can take 100 percent of our students,” said Louise Regan, SAD 63 superintendent. “And Bucksport can’t do it. There is not one high school that we can place all of our students. That’s the problem.”

The state has suggested that SAD 63 join with Brewer, Orrington, Dedham and CSD 8, made up of Amherst, Aurora, Great Pond and Osborn, to create a regional school unit known as RSU 15.

Brewer, the only community with a high school in the suggested unit, now has an application process for all nonresident students that screens them based on behavior, grades and attendance.

The state suggested that Bucksport create RSU 9 with Searsport, a community that “voted to go with Belfast, not with us” during a school board meeting last week, Lucarelli said.

“Our intention is to form an RSU that is K-12 and provide K-12 services,” she said.

Bucksport could not handle all of SAD 63’s secondary students, but possibly could take 25 percent, she said, after noting she has not officially discussed the issue with her board.

Bucksport school board chairman Paul Bissonnette was at the meeting with Lucarelli.

A reorganization meeting with all the communities suggested for RSU 15 is scheduled for 7 p.m. today in the cafeteria at Brewer High School.