Residents of Regional School Unit 21 will vote Tuesday on a $56.5 million school renovation bond that was scaled back after voters previously rejected a more elaborate plan to overhaul three district schools.

The plan, if approved by the majority of voters in Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel, would address safety and handicap-accessibility issues at Kennebunk High School, Kennebunkport Consolidated School and Mildred L. Day School in Arundel. The plan was scaled back by about $40 million after voters overwhelmingly rejected a renovation bond in January 2014.

Also on Tuesday, residents in the RSU 21 towns will vote on the proposed $40 million annual education budget. In Kennebunkport, residents also will vote on whether to file a petition to withdraw from RSU 21 because of concerns about cost sharing and to authorize the withdrawal committee to spend $40,000 on the process.

“I think people drive by and see this beautiful historic (high school) building built in 1939 and they’re deceived,” said Tim Walsh, a senior and student representative to the school board. “They don’t see the cracks, they don’t see the leaks and they don’t see the trailer park we have out back. It’s beautiful on the outside, but the inside is falling apart.”

The bulk of the money would go to renovations at Kennebunk High School, which school officials say is in danger of losing its accreditation if its facilities are not improved. At Mildred L. Day, two wings that are sinking would be razed and replaced with a new addition on land that is more stable. In Kennebunkport, the project would allow the district to eliminate three portable classrooms and renovate the school’s multipurpose space.

Of the total $56.5 million proposed for the project, $42.8 million would go to Kennebunk High School, $8.55 million would be spent at Mildred L. Day School in Arundel and $5.14 million would fund renovations at Kennebunkport Consolidated School.

The annual property tax impact on a home valued at $300,000 would be $229.68 in Kennebunk, $219.69 in Arundel and $209.28 in Kennebunkport. The average tax reduction is almost 27 percent compared to the 2014 proposal, according to school officials.

After voters rejected a $75 million bond, school officials scaled back the projects by $40 million. Significant reductions in the proposed renovation plan include eliminating a performing arts center at the high school, moving from two gymnasiums to one gym and a multi-purpose room for sporting events, and the elimination of artificial turf on playing fields.

Walsh and fellow senior Cara McCluskey are spending the last two weeks of the school year as volunteers on the campaign advocating approval of the bond. They said the issues at the high school that need to be fixed are obvious to anyone who spends time in the school, where classrooms exceed the capacity recommended by the Department of Education and students push past one another in overcrowded stairwells. There is no functioning sprinkler system and some classes are held in portable classrooms that have exceeded their expected lifespan by more than 15 years, McCluskey said.

Walsh said the most concerning issues revolve around access for students who use wheelchairs or crutches. Students who cannot use stairs must take long detours through the school and across the school’s driveway to get to class and the bathroom, he said.

“If you’re in the main part of the building, in order to get to a handicap-accessible bathroom, you have to go 0.6 miles across the school to get to one, including going outside,” he said. “That’s the same distance as from Town Hall to the end of Main Street.”

While there hasn’t been as much opposition to this plan as there was in 2014, it has been somewhat contentious in the RSU 21 communities. Last week, Superintendent Kevin Crowley sent a letter to parents after signs popped up in town urging residents to vote against spending $97 million on the schools. That figure, Crowley said, was misleading because it included the renovation project and the district’s annual $40 million budget.

“It is disappointing to see this type of misinformation being presented publicly,” Crowley said. “It is our hope this was not a deliberate attempt to alter the outcome of the vote.”

In a letter to the editor, school board member Jeff Cole of Kennebunk said the present proposal is “hardly wise spending,” especially with the annual school budget eclipsing $40 million. The spending trend is consistent with that the interim Commission of Education recently said is “unsustainable,” Cole said.

“With the bond vote, we’re facing $97 million of spending, a very crucial test of the capacity of our communities to be taxed for education that is just what the DOE commissioner was referring to, at a time when we’re experiencing an increasing number of senior residents on fixed incomes and fewer young families with school aged children at the other end of the spectrum,” Cole wrote.

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