Monday night, the South Portland School Board approved a plan to renovate the high school for a price tag of about $40 million.

The board unanimously approved the high school renovation over renovating or replacing Mahoney and Memorial Middle schools.

Instead, said Superintendent Wendy Houlihan, the town will apply to get the state to pay for those projects. Though all schools are aging with varying deficiencies, the middle schools showed better potential to attract the interest of the state.

Last year 66 schools applied to the state to pay for their construction projects, and 13 schools were chosen as recipients. Houlihan said, based on a comparison of schools who received funding versus those who did not, it became apparent that the middle schools were the better candidates.

Mahoney Middle was built in 1922 and then expanded in the 1930s. It has no ventilation system, and it’s on a small site that wouldn’t be an adequate building site today, said Houlihan. These and other reasons make Mahoney a good candidate to get help from the state.

Houlihan said the high school was built in stages, the first of it constructed in the 1950s. Though it too has what Houlihan described as “significant building safety issues,” it is less likely to rise to the top of the state’s list of schools in need of help.

If the city agrees to pay for the $40 million, the student capacity would expand from 1,000 to 1,200, said Houlihan. The annex that was built in the 1960s would be torn down and the bus loop would change. A new front entrance would be built, and there would be a library expansion.

The plan backed by the school board will now go to city councilors, who will decide whether send the project to a referendum vote.

The school system will apply for state funding for Mahoney and Memorial Middle schools in August of 2007.