CALAIS – The State Board of Education this week gave concept approval to the city to move ahead with planned construction and renovation projects at the Calais elementary and high schools, school officials said Thursday.

The concept approval for the proposal, which calls for $8 million in additions and renovations to the elementary and high schools, was granted on Wednesday. After a public hearing, the issue will go before voters later this year in the form of a binding referendum. Construction could begin as early as October.

When the projects are complete, the middle school pupils will be divided, with the seventh- and eighth-graders attending classes in a separate unit at the high school, and the fifth- and sixth-graders housed in a separate wing at the elementary school.

The city has grappled with the problem of where to house the middle school pupils since it was forced to close the aging Calais Middle School on Washington Street because of health and safety reasons. Since then, the pupils have been housed in portable classrooms next to the old middle school building.

For a time, it appeared that the city would renovate the existing middle school, but a depressed economy and declining enrollment caused that plan to be scuttled.

The high school was built in the 1970s to accommodate at least 500 students. Now fewer than 300 attend. Moving the seventh- and eighth-graders there will add about 100 pupils. There are 175 pupils at the elementary school. The middle school’s fifth- and sixth-graders would add about 95 pupils.

The changes planned for the high school include renovation of classrooms to create a separate unit for the middle school pupils. The high school students will be moved to the back of the building. There will be a large library-multimedia section with entrances from both areas of the building.

The changes at the elementary school will include the addition of several small wings at the back of the building. The new space will allow the kindergarten through third-grade pupils to be housed in one wing, with the fourth- through sixth-grade pupils in another. There also will be a larger library-multimedia center and a large gymnasium.

High School Principal Jim Underwood said he is looking forward to the change. “I am very excited about the whole program, because it is going to do so much for the kids in Calais,” he said.