Penobscot Valley High School in Howland will be closed today based on the state fire marshal’s reports indicating that the roof over a portion of the building is unsafe.

SAD 31 Superintendent William Ziemer said Thursday night that Commissioner Susan Gendron of the state Department of Education told him during a meeting earlier in the day that the main hallway and the classrooms connected to it should not be occupied because support beams are “twisted or sagging.”

Ziemer said a 1998 engineering report after the ice storm that year “strongly recommended” that the roof be repaired as soon as possible, but nothing was ever done.

He said the same portion of the school had been closed down three years ago but that during several changes in administration “there might have been the perception that the hallway was safe.”

After another recent inspection by the fire marshal, however, Ziemer said he was told that section needs to be kept off-limits. He decided Thursday to close the entire school just for the day “so we can reorganize and [figure out] where students in that section will be placed.”

“We’ll have school Monday and we’ll carry on as normally as we can,” he said.

But teacher Nancy Burgoyne said the community was in an uproar believing this could be the first step in closing the entire facility for good.

The district has been divided ever since the state refused to pay for a new high school because of the area’s declining enrollment. Residents were told to develop a consolidation plan with SAD 67 in Lincoln to provide secondary education. But talks between the two districts have gone nowhere.

“There’s so much turmoil here, the whole school is filled with people,” she said from inside the school Thursday night. She said students were camping outside the building, and television news reporters were interviewing teachers and school board members. Parents and state lawmakers from the area also were milling about, she said.

“It’s hopping. And nobody’s worried about the roof falling on them,” she said.

Burgoyne also said she couldn’t understand why the whole school had to be closed since there were no regular classes conducted in the area in question.While some people say it’s time to close PVHS, others say the loss of the high school would be devastating to the seven communities it serves.

Ziemer said Gendron also told him Thursday that because the district was unable to develop a plan with Lincoln within an allotted time frame, she would recommend to the State Board of Education that $9.6 million in construction funds be withdrawn. That money had been set aside to expand Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln to accommodate the high school students from SAD 31.

But Burgoyne said the community didn’t want the money anyway and needed only between $3 million and $5 million to renovate a few classrooms and build a new wing onto the Howland school.

Ziemer said there was “more anger and resentment than confusion. We have an institution that’s vital to our community and now we’re being told we can’t use it, and people are very unhappy with that.”