HODGDON – With two meetings under their belts, administrators, school board and community members, and officials from five school districts in the region have begun formulating a strategy to fit into the state’s reorganization of education administration.

The state Department of Education has recommended that SAD 29 join with SAD 25 in Stacyville, SAD 70 in Hodgdon, SAD 14 in Danforth, and CSD 9 in Dyer Brook to form what would be known as Regional School Unit 4.

Those involved in the effort on a local level met Monday evening in Hodgdon to plan, organize and strategize.

The education edict, which was signed into law in June, calls for restructuring the state’s current 152 school administrative systems into 80.

By law, all school systems in the state must reorganize into larger, more efficient units or reorganize administrative structures to reduce costs.

Communities have been asked to contemplate forming an RSU of at least 2,500 students and containing at least one publicly funded high school. In cases where forming a 2,500-student unit is impractical, the department will allow units of 1,200 students.

RSU 4 would consist of 27 towns and approximately 2,752 students. The district also is exploring other options for consolidation, but has not yet begun regionalization meetings with those entities.

Island and tribal schools will not be subject to the minimum size requirement.

SAD 29 Superintendent Steve Fitzpatrick said the recent meeting attracted approximately 45 representatives from the schools and communities that would make up RSU 4.

Most of the work done during the meeting involved forming the larger group into subcommittees that will tackle a variety of issues in the coming months.

“It’s a massive project, but the group has started to form themselves into different committees to tackle the projects that need to be done,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’ve got numerous subcommittees formed at this point and have begun dividing up the work. We plan to have meetings in each of the districts as we continue through the process.”

The subcommittees are charged with tasks such as making decisions about governance and representation, assets and teacher contracts, and sorting out details of the proposed RSU’s financial future.

At this point, the regionalization committee has held meetings in Houlton and Hodgdon. The next meeting will take place in Danforth on Oct. 4 at East Grand High School.