FARMINGTON — A new link between a student’s school nurse and their parents/guardians and a proposed college partnership involving artificial intelligence education are among key programs recently highlighted by the school superintendent.

Superintendent Christian Elkington discussed the districtwide health communication portal and a proposed partnership with the University of Maine at Farmington during the Regional School Unit 9 board of directors meeting on Tuesday.

Elkington announced the launch of a new Electronic Health Record Parent Portal, sometimes referred to internally as the SNAP portal, which allows parents and guardians to communicate directly with their student’s school nurse.

“Not to be confused with food benefits, the SNAP portal is a new online way for parents to communicate health information with their school nurse at each school,” Elkington said.

The secure portal allows families to message school nurses, upload doctors’ notes and medication orders, and share health plans such as asthma action plans. The system was piloted at the middle school last year and is being expanded districtwide this year, with feedback to be used to determine whether it will continue in the future.

Meanwhile, Elkington said he also sent a letter of support on behalf of the district for University of Maine at FarmingtonRural AI Skills & Education initiative, which would position the district as a core partner, known as a “Lighthouse Lab” — meaning the district would help pilot and model the program if the grant is awarded.

The program proposed by the University of Maine at Farmington is designed to help rural school districts build artificial intelligence literacy and computer science skills through educator training, on-site support and student access to AI-focused coursework.

“This is something that we hope they receive and it will allow us to continue to move forward with AI work in our district,” Elkington said.

He said the district plans to expand AI learning opportunities for staff.

“I’ve met with our technology people and we are going to make a real concerted effort (to) increase the amount of AI learning, and options that we make available because I believe, and we believed, it could be a real significant support to the teaching staff and to the administrative staff,” Elkington said. “So we’re going to redouble our efforts there.”

The program would help teachers, administrators and students learn how to understand and responsibly use artificial intelligence tools to support instruction, accessibility and school operations.

“We think that this will be a great opportunity if UMF gets this grant to also give another way for staff to learn about AI,” he said.