Portland officials will study options for reorganizing the city’s three middle schools following a vote Tuesday by the school board.

At a meeting that stretched late into the night, board members unanimously supported a study, and scaled back language from an original proposal that specifically directed district leaders to look at consolidating the middle schools from three campuses to two.

The superintendent will have until October to deliver a full report, at which point the board will formally decide on what action to take.

The original resolution, advanced by a board committee in February, was a response to declining enrollment, underutilization of buildings and facility issues in Maine’s largest school district, where middle school enrollment has dropped by more than 10% over the past five years. That proposal explicitly called on the superintendent to present a plan to “reorganize the district’s middle schools into a configuration of two middle schools.”

On Tuesday the board supported an amendment that removed the specific direction to study consolidation; instead, it calls on the superintendent to “develop and present a comprehensive set of recommendations to reorganize the district’s middle schools.”

The amended proposal from board member Jayne Sawtelle combined the original resolution submitted by Julianne Opperman and an alternative option advanced by Maya Lena. 

Board members debated how explicit the resolution should be about consolidation, and were ultimately split on the amendment, supporting it in a 5-4 vote. Lena said the final proposal didn’t rule out the idea of consolidation entirely, but left the board open to other options, such as a reorganization of grades.

“If the superintendent and designee come back with a report that very clearly demonstrates that consolidating to two middle schools makes sense for financial reasons, for programmatic reasons, for the health and well-being of all of our middle school students — that we can do it well for our staff, that we have a very good plan in place and it makes sense to me — I will support it,” Lena said.

The original resolution did not mention any middle school by name, but public comment focused on Lincoln Middle School in Portland’s Deering Center neighborhood. Opperman said multiple meetings on the same night and a discussion about facility issues at the school led to a misconception that Lincoln was on the chopping block.

Her presentation demonstrated that Lincoln had seen the largest enrollment drop of the middle schools, 23% over the past five years, and had the lowest building utilization. Dozens of Lincoln teachers, staff, parents and students turned out across several meetings to oppose the resolution.

The middle school programming discussion comes as the district is also contending with a challenging budget season, and planning to cut positions, many of which are currently vacant, in its central office and in schools.

The district is expecting to receive $4 million less from the state this year because of declining enrollment and increasing property valuations.