Union 60 Superintendent William Folsom announced at Monday night's Greenville School Committee meeting that the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation has donated $25,000 to the Greenville Schools Playground Committee.

Darralyn Gauvin, a grant-writer for the Greenville school system, contacted the foundation at the suggestion of playground committee member Becky Lee. ''She brought it to me, and I wrote up a proposal for the foundation. This is wonderful news not just for the school, but the entire committee,'' Gauvin said.

The old playground was composed primarily of wooden structures built in the 1980s, but the equipment had deteriorated to the point where most of it was unsafe and had to be dismantled.

Fund-raising had begun last year, and work parties have cleaned up most of the site in anticipation of the new equipment.

Other major monetary contributors, to date, include the Moosehead Lake Vacation and Sportsman's Association ($1,045), the Greenville Middle School Student Council ($695), the Greenville Schools Parent Teacher Organization ($300) and the Greenville High School Key Club.

The Moosehead Lake Kiwanis Club has purchased $1,800 worth of swings for the playground, the town of Greenville did the site preparation, Raymond Day has donated blueprints and designs, Moosehead Cedar Log Homes has contributed picnic tables and wood chips for the site, the Columbia-Doric Masonic Lodge has donated a sandbox and has also pledged labor towards the project, and Steve Mason has donated the use of his dump truck.

Other news at Monday night's meeting wasn't as bright, as Folsom and Committee Chair Richard Gould both predicted that the state's share of school funding could be trimmed when the legislature reconvenes in January.

Folsom said that in his view, state priorities need to be shifted before school districts are asked to freeze their expenditures. ''If there's money available for the Rainy Day Fund (a state ''savings account'') and the governor's laptop computer program, we shouldn't be asked to freeze our budget,'' said Folsom.

Gould, a former state representative, suggested that the school committee and other local residents ''write your legislators, the governor and the commissioner (of education) and tell them that school funding is not the place to cut. When that happens, it falls right back on us.''

Gould said that local school districts ''never fully recovered'' from cuts in the early 1990s, and that the funding formula is still ''several million dollars short from what it should be.''

On the academic front, Principal Faye Booker reported that 16 percent of the high school and 26 percent of the middle school students made the first-quarter honor roll this year. ''That's a very high percentage,'' said Booker.

There was some discussion about poor turnout for parent-teacher conferences, with Booker and the school committee acknowledging that scheduling needs to be fine-tuned. Parents of children in the younger grades make appointments to meet their child's teacher at a designated time while parents of older children meet in a less formal, open-house setting. Teacher Charlie Carter said that he preferred evening sessions a lot better since appointments didn't conflict with family work schedules.