Lincoln Academy will expand its residential program this year, with plans to double the residential student population, open its first residence hall and build another.
The Newcastle high school, which currently has 14 international students in a home-stay program, will welcome 32 in September 2013, according to a Jan. 24 press release.
Home-stay families will host eight of those students, while the other 24 will live in the newly-renovated Hall House.
The school will also build a new residence hall on campus to house 20-40 students. The building will open in fall 2014 and allow the school to welcome 44-64 residential students.
The home-stay program will also continue. “We plan to always have a small home-stay program, because there are students for whom it is a better fit,” said Director of Admissions Sheryl Stearns.
The Lincoln Academy Board of Trustees voted to build the hall last month. The board continues to discuss several details, such as the capacity and size of the new residence hall and the construction schedule for the building.
The 14 international students currently attending Lincoln Academy consist of 11 students from China, two students from Germany and one from Pakistan. Future boarders might include students from Maine, including students from island communities, and students from elsewhere in the U.S., according to the press release.
The school founded the program in 2011 with six students, all from China.
The recent announcements from the school are consistent with a plan the school introduced to the community in December 2011.
The school, at the time, said it would renovate the Hall House to house 24 students and two adults. The trustees were “evaluating the feasibility” of 1-2 separate residence halls with capacity for 20 students and two adults apiece.
A campus plan released in 2011 shows the residence halls roughly behind home plate of the school’s baseball diamond, between the Hall House and the track on the Academy Hill Road side and an employee parking lot to the opposite side.
A planned applied technology and engineering center appeared on the other side of the employee lot near the left field line.
The school has yet to determine the exact location of the new residence hall, although it will probably be somewhere near the technology center, Stearns said.
As for future buildings, the trustees “have not made a decision regarding residence halls beyond the one being built for the fall of 2014,” she said.
The school reiterated some of the reasons for the residential program in a statement.
The program “brings new students to LA in a time of declining school enrollment,” according to the statement. “As the state of Maine limits the public funding of tuition, the residential program provides tuition revenue that is more in line with the actual cost of an LA education.
“The additional students will allow us to stabilize our enrollment and maintain the courses and extracurricular offerings for our local student population that would otherwise be jeopardized by a shrinking local population.”
The student body currently includes 502 local students, down from more than 600 in 2006, and the school projects the local population to continue to drop.
“LA is committed to its role as a community school while also looking for ways to ensure its strength and vibrancy in coming years. The residential program will help to accomplish this as it draws students from around the world, creates new education possibilities for all LA students, and builds bridges between the school and local communities,” according to the school statement.
The program “encourages new learning and cultural opportunities for all LA students and community members,” according to the statement.
