Principal Jennifer McKay is sharing this letter with information about the upcoming school year with Dike Newell School families and the RSU1 community.

Dear Dike-Newell Families,

I hope this letter finds you all enjoying the sunshine and warm weather. It seems like summer has just begun, but on the other hand it tends to be gone in the blink of an eye. With that in mind, the RSU 1 administration has been working quickly to put together a plan for Dike-Newell School for the coming year.

Much of the Dike-Newell structure has been deemed a complete loss, and very little from inside is able to be salvaged. When making plans for next year, we began by determining our priorities - one of which is keeping our school community together at a single site, as best as possible, and the other being to keep our students in a safe learning environment.

With those two guiding principles, after considering various options, the one that works best is to use the vacant BRCTC building, attached to the old Morse High School. Quite a bit of work will be done this summer to make the building functional for school in the fall, but there is enough space for us to run our elementary school in that building.

There will certainly be additional updates as we get closer to the start of school, including important information regarding pick up and drop off, an open house evening to familiarize students and families with the new space, and other details.

I would like to thank the RSU 1 administration, the facilities department, the tech department, and the Dike-Newell leadership team for working so hard in the past few weeks, as well as the weeks to come. It is no simple task to completely relocate an elementary school, and while we have our work cut out for us, I am pleased with the direction we are going and hopeful for the coming school year.

Sincerely,

Jennifer McKay
Principal, Dike-Newell School