The Hooksett School Board is looking for members of the community to sit on a newly established committee devoted to studying future high school plans for the school district.

Superintendent Charles “Phil” Littlefield said two parents of Hooksett students and two community members at large are needed to fill four seats of the 13-member committee.

Anyone interested in applying should send a letter of interest addressed to Littlefield at School Administrative Unit 15, 90 Farmer Road, in Hooksett. Littlefield requested that those interested do not call or send e-mails.

The new committee, established through a vote at the School Board’s meeting on Tuesday, June 3, would be an offshoot of the Long Range Planning Committee already in existence.

That committee, which will deliver its final report sometime in August, focused more on the kindergarten-through-eighth grade needs of the district.

“The High School Study Committee is probably part B of the long-term plan for the Hooksett School District,” Littlefield said. “It’s a natural outgrowth of that.”

In addition to the two community members, and two parents, the committee would include both school and town officials: Littlefield, Assistant Superintendent Gail Kushner, School District Business Administrator Karen Lessard, two School Board members, one Budget Committee member, one Town Councilor, one Planning Board member, and either Town Administrator David Jodoin himself or someone he chooses to designate as his representative. “This seeks to involve all stakeholders in the study,” Littlefield said.

School Board Chairman Maura Ouellette said School Board members Paul Cournoyer, the board’s vice chairman, and Becky Berk will represent the School Board on the committee. She added that Town Councilor Dave Dickson and Acting Budget Committee Chairman Tom Keach are also on board.

The study committee would gather data on population and growth to make recommendations to the School Board about the future needs of the Hooksett School District, exploring every option from continuing to send high school students to Manchester schools to possibly constructing a new high school.

Also on the table is possibly redistricting the Hooksett students who are currently split between West and Central high schools, as well as looking at all kinds of cooperative agreements with other communities.

“I don’t want the community to be alarmed. We still have 15 years on the (Manchester) contract,” Ouellette said. “We have to look at all our options.” She added the School Board has had plans to establish such a committee for a while now, but said she could not deny that the recent troubles over the Manchester school budget gave the board a nudge to do so. “We knew we had to look at this, but it’s playing a role,” Ouellette said.

Currently, Ouellette said, Hooksett sends 547 students to Manchester high schools. That number will increase over the next few years, she said, particularly given the current enrollment bubble in the seventh grade at Cawley Middle School.

According to the statement approved by the School Board, the High School Study Committee will use facilities analyses, enrollment and population projections, and the Long Range Planning Committee’s findings to analyze the feasibility of building Hooksett’s own high school, cooperating with other towns and reorganizing a tuition agreement, either with Manchester or another town.

The current tuition agreement with Manchester allows the Manchester School District to cut ties with Hooksett, Ouellette said, but not vice versa.

Littlefield said the hope is that the committee would have an initial meeting in August, after the Long Range Planning Commitee’s final report, to firm up the charge and expectations of committee members, with a tentative goal of having a final report ready before the start of school in 2009.

“We’re more interested in doing a thorough job of studying the issues than a due date,” Littlefield said.