Golden secures $1.9 million for Skowhegan-area early childhood education facility

WASHINGTON — Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) announced today that he has secured $1.9 million for the Early Childhood Learning Center at the new Margaret Chase Smith Community School in Skowhegan. 

The funding is part of the partial 2024 government funding package signed into law Saturday. It will fund the construction of an additional wing at the new school. 

“Education, especially early education, can help people overcome almost all adversity,” saidGolden. “This project will support ongoing work in the region to modernize educational facilities after years of instructional challenges caused by an aging infrastructure that can’t be expected to meet the community’s needs. The communities of MSAD54 have put in hard work to bring this vision to life, and I’m proud to help secure federal investment to get this project over the finish line.”

MSAD54 serves students from Canaan, Cornville, Mercer, Norridgewock, Skowhegan, and Smithfield. The current composition of facilities, with multiple school buildings and the use of portable classrooms, has led to challenges for students and staff, including the lack of continuity of instruction and numerous transitions that have created educational and instructional inefficiencies over time. 

“As a small Maine community, we are incredibly lucky to have representatives that actively work for, understand and support our local initiatives that will produce real change,” said Samuel Hight, chair of the Early Childhood Learning Center fundraising committee. “The recent approval for MSAD54's $1.92 million application will fulfill the fundraising goals for the Early Childhood Learning Center, covering all the costs of the additional wing on the new $75 million Margaret Chase Smith Community School — a first of its kind school that will support children ages 6 weeks old through fifth grade — without adding any burden to the local taxpayers.”

The new building will allow for the district to close two elementary schools and repurpose one to support special education and alternative programs and allow 20 classrooms that currently utilize portable classrooms to move into a permanent facility. The school will aid in the district's effort to expand to daily universal full-day Pre-K programming through their partnership with KVCAP. It will also serve as a learning center for high school students and pre-service teachers by moving the current Somerset Career and Technical Center early childhood program at North Elementary School into the new building. 

Additional funding has come from a fundraising committee that combines the district, KVCAP, and community leaders, who hit its $3 million funding goal to support the project and minimize the local impact on property taxes. 

The request on behalf of Maine School Administrative District #54 was one of 15 awards from Golden’s Community Project Funding (CPF) requests approved as part of the appropriations package. His $26 million in successful CPF requests was the most of any Democrat in Congress.

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