by Nancy Beal

At three separate meetings and by unanimous votes on September 2, the school boards governing Jonesport-Beals High School, Jonesport Elementary and Beals Elementary Schools — the three schools that comprise Union 103 — voted to move up a previously set opening date of Sept. 28 to Sept. 14. The votes followed the specter of students going to school into next July after Superintendent Lewis Collins told them that the Maine Department of Education (DOE) would grant no waivers from the 175-school day mandate until January.