SAD 1 voters will face a bond question on Election Day on a grant to provide new equipment for the Presque Isle Tech Center’s agricultural programs and the school farm.
About a dozen people attended a public hearing Tuesday at the Presque Isle Middle School Auditorium as district leaders shared more about the award and the equipment it will buy.
The Presque Isle center is one of 11 sites that, if voters approve, will receive grants from the Maine Department of Education for career and technical education. SAD 1 was approved to receive $708,696, Superintendent Ben Greenlaw said.
The 38-acre SAD 1 farm is the only one of its kind in Aroostook County and one of few in Maine operated by a school district. Falmouth Public Schools has a similar arrangement with its Farm & Garden Learning Center. Others, like the Roberts Farm Preserve of SAD 17 in Oxford Hills, are operated by a third party.
Updated equipment is crucial for those who will enter the agricultural industry, CTE Director Ralph Conroy said.
“If we’re going to train kids to work on a farm you’ve got to have the equipment they’re going to use,” he said. “For instance, our agricultural mechanics class should be using the equipment modern farmers are using, like tractors with GPS guidance.”
The bond money comes from federal pandemic relief funds that state legislators set aside for career and technical education grants. Maine’s 27 career and technical education programs were invited to apply for a portion of the funds. Other successful applicants in Aroostook County were the Caribou Tech Center and the St. John Valley Tech Center in Frenchville.
The Maine Bond Bank will distribute the funds and requires the money to be approved in local referendum votes.
The Presque Isle Tech Center would purchase a service truck, tractor with GPS features, a sprayer, field cultivator, planter and hay baler if the bond question passes. In preparation, the district put the equipment out to bid with local dealers.
The new equipment will also help the farm expand and become more self-sufficient, Conroy said.
Staff currently buy straw to mulch the strawberry crop at $7 a bale, an operation that requires about 1,000 bales, he said. With the new machinery, farm director John Hoffses and students plan to till an area to grow oats. They’ll sell the oats and bale their own straw for the strawberries, saving thousands of dollars a year.
Agricultural mechanics students will use the service truck to tend to farm equipment.
“When tractors break, they break in the field. To fix them, you’ve got to go to them,” Conroy said.
The school farm was established in 1991 and hosts about 60 classroom tours each fall, Greenlaw said. About 1,000 students, adults and staff visit the facility in a year.
