By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

School officials from Auburn and Candia ­ representing similarly sized school districts with similarly crumbling facilities ­ are considering forging a joint maintenance agreement for a new middle school.

The discussion was initiated by the Auburn School Board, which is currently mulling new school options for a $686,000, 58-acre property near Route 101, purchased in July.

A middle school collaboration with Candia is one of several options the board has considered, its members said.

“From an educational perspective and from a financial perspective, this seems advantageous,” said Auburn School Board Vice Chairman Kathleen Porter.

But Porter said the two boards are nowhere near ready to sign off on a deal.

“The worst thing do would be to move this thing along too quickly,” she said.

The two boards plan to meet with their mutual attorney, not to begin negotiations, only to investigate the possibility of a joint maintenance agreement, officials from both sides said.

“Their attorney is going to be there, but I think it’s going to be more of an instructional meeting,” said SAU 15 Superintendent Phil Littlefield. SAU 15 is the central administrative office for the school districts of Auburn, Candia and Hooksett.

Auburn and Candia have tried to negotiate collaborative school arrangements in the past.

Years ago, the two districts joined with Deerfield and Fremont to ponder a cooperative school, remembered Candia School Board Chairman Karen Smith. That plan fizzled, as did a previous effort at a cooperative between Hooksett, Auburn and Candia.

“The whole notion of getting together with other towns has been around with us and Auburn for a long time,” Smith said.

Shortly after Auburn approved the purchase of the new school property at this year’s March School District Meeting, the Auburn board sent a letter to Candia asking if their board would be interested in a tuition agreement.

Smith said the Candia board wasn’t interested in a tuition pact because it was looking for more long-term solutions for the town’s kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

“We would like to have some sort of voice, some sort of say, in the operation of the school,” said Smith. “We would very much like to feel it’s a collaborative kind of relationship.”

She said that type of involvement hasn’t been possible with Candia’s current tuition agreement by which it sends its high school students to Manchester.

“Even though the contract says we have some say and some control,” Smith said, “effectively we don’t.”

Joint maintenance agreements aren’t as popular throughout New Hampshire as tuition agreements ­ as in Auburn and Candia’s high school deal ­ and cooperative arrangements.

Cooperatives require multiple years of School District Meeting approvals to be established, and require a separate school board made up of representatives from each of the sending towns.

The two boards were to meet on Wednesday, Oct. 4, at Auburn Village School.