East Millinocket school officials will showcase a $928,000 school renovation project during an open house tonight featuring University of Maine President Peter Hoff as guest speaker.

The Schenck High School renovation project is one of three undertaken this summer in northern Penobscot County schools.

East Millinocket school officials are extending an invitation to parents and everyone in the region to attend the open house at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. “We are very proud of our school,” said Superintendent Sandra MacArthur.

MacArthur said the renovation project is about 95 percent complete. She expects it will be complete by October.

“It is overall more conducive for education and it has improved school climate,” the superintendent said of the newly renovated high school.

“The students really appreciate the new classrooms and the new cafeteria,” MacArthur said. “I’ve heard them say nothing but good things about the new cafeteria. It is a very light, very open, pleasant environment to sit down and eat lunch.”

She said the school’s science labs have been enlarged and brought up to current codes with eyewashes, showers and exhaust hoods. MacArthur said the new labs all have computer stations ready to go and each has its own storage area. “The overall environment is much more conducive to teaching,” she said. “Teachers have demonstration tables at the front of the rooms.”

Last summer, East Millinocket voters approved $1.1 million for two school projects.

The $928,813 high school renovation project is being paid with a 20-year bond.

The high school renovation project is the first significant renovation since the 500 wing was added to the school in 1965. It included: upgrading science labs; upgrading the consumer science (formerly home economics) area and making it accessible for people with disabilities; dismantling the metal shop, which no longer is used, and converting it into a new kitchen and cafeteria to serve student lunches; adding a new computer drafting classroom and upgrading the industrial technology area; and bringing the building up to current codes by adding sprinkler systems throughout and emergency lighting.

A $348,300 roof replacement project at Schenck is complete. It included replacing 30-year-old roofs on the 500-wing and the shop wing of the school and upgrading structural supports. The state will pay 30 percent, or $104,490 of the project costs. The remaining $243,810 will be repaid to the state interest-free over a five-year period.

In Millinocket, about 58,400 square feet of the Stearns High School roof has been replaced and structural supports upgraded. The project cost $816,500. Millinocket taxpayers won’t have to pay back $455,035 of the loan. The remaining $361,465 will be paid back interest-free over a 10-year period.

In Lincoln, SAD 67 has replaced a more than 30-year old school bus garage with a new one and has relocated it from a high-traffic area of the town to a site near the high school.

Superintendent Fred Woodman said the project is nearly complete, except for some minor items. The facility is being used.

The new 80-foot-by-80-foot-by-20-foot steel structure metal building is located on a site in the southwest corner of the student parking lot.

The project cost $378,656. It is being funded through a special five-year lease-purchase program where the district borrowed the money and its payments will be reimbursed by the state beginning in 2002. Woodman said the cost to district taxpayers would be minimal, about $4,000 over the life of the five-year loan.