Members of the Salem and East Lyme boards of education met Monday to discuss the final draft of a new contract between the two towns that will continue to send Salem students in grades 9 through 12 to East Lyme High School.

Salem does not maintain a high school, so once eighth-grade students graduate from Salem School, the town has to designate a high school for them to attend.

Salem has been sending students to East Lyme High School almost continuously since 1967.

A formal cooperative agreement was created by the two schools in 1997 for a 20-year contract between the towns that established East Lyme High School as the official high school of Salem Public Schools.

Discussions began in 2012 for establishing another 20-year contract before the current one ends in June 2019.

An efficiency study conducted by accounting firm BlumShapiro published in May also suggested sending Salem’s seventh- and eighth-grade students to East Lyme to ease the transition and provide students with more academic and extracurricular opportunities.

The Salem Board of Education voted in December to keep the students in Salem after the Long-Range Education Subcommittee noted that residents felt it was not the best decision for the town.

Like the previous agreement, the new agreement creates a new Cooperative Committee made up of the full membership of both school boards to oversee its implementation and amend it as necessary.

The agreement also dissolves the High School Leadership Team established in the 1997 agreement, which was created to make sure both Salem and East Lyme had a role in decisions made regarding the high school.

“It was something that was started because 20 years ago, we needed to have a joint voice, but it’s now been there for 20 years, so it’s just redundant in what’s going on with the curriculum council and a lot of other things,” said Salem board member and agreement committee member Mary Ann Pudimat at the meeting. “And to be honest, I think when we send our kids to East Lyme, they’re East Lyme students then, so when we have problems as a parent, we come to East Lyme.”

The committee approved this draft as the final draft Monday and will meet again on May 16 to approve the agreement.

a.hutchinson@theday.com

Twitter: @ahutch411