The Chilmark Preschool is looking to expand into a building of its own, as the student enrollment continues to grow at its shared campus with the Chilmark School and space issues push instruction into non-classroom areas of the facility.

A private, nonprofit institution, the Chilmark Preschool has long been allowed to share space at the Chilmark School campus, partially to help subsidize costs. The Chilmark School provides public kindergarten through fifth-grade education at a building on town-owned property just west of Beetlebung Corner.

But Jessica Mason, a parent and member of the Chilmark school advisory committee, presented the Chilmark select board with findings Tuesday from a study that showed school enrollment has grown from 38 students in 2008-2009 to 70 students this year, with growth anticipated to continue. The committee and the school’s board of directors conducted the study.

“We have classes happening in the [school] foyer” Ms. Mason said. “We are space crunched right now…its just a matter of where the numbers lie.”

To accommodate the growth in student population, Chilmark school used the Chilmark Community Center for certain programs, such as physical education and yoga classes — an issue that has caused concern from the select board.

On Tuesday, members of the select board expressed an openness to allow the preschool to construct its own building on the campus to help alleviate space issues.

“We decided twenty years ago when we built the new [school] building, we were gonna have a campus approach,” said select board member Warren Doty, who supported continued school use of the community center space. “What we need is a permanent space for the Chilmark Preschool,” he said.

Select board member Jim Malkin said the board would be amenable to plans from the preschool to construct a building near the elementary school, provided that the school pursue their own funding. Preschool board president Rebekah Thompson said they are already pursuing grant funding for such a project.

Meanwhile, school use of the community center will continue in the mornings, Tuesday-Friday.

“If we can move where we are going…then I think we can talk a lot more about more use of the campus, more use of the community center,” Mr. Doty said. “Everyone needs to bend a little to get there.”

In other business, town energy committee chairman Robert Hanneman spoke against an Eversource proposal to install 40 new electrical poles on Middle Road. Mr Hanneman said in the meeting that Eversource claimed the new poles would improve grid resilience in the town.

“We need the leadership of the select board and the town, unless we’re very comfortable with one of our key scenic resources being severely damaged,” he said, emphasizing that Eversource’s claims were vague, and pointed to the unsightly outcome of a similar project on Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road a decade ago. “Eversource has not learned its lesson from that, even though they told me they learned their lesson,” he said.

Town administrator Tim Carroll explained that the company couldn’t continue without town approval. The board said it would closely follow the issue.

The board also held a public hearing and vote on a series of small changes to the town’s harbor regulations, including an exemption to a one slip per household rule for the charter dock and permission for inactive fishing vessels to stay at the commercial dock, provided that no new demand arises. In response to public comment, the board also amended the bylaws to allow a full year for families of a departed slip-holder to act on their dock slip. The new regulations passed unanimously.

The board also discussed the ongoing renovation project at the Howes House, which serves as the headquarters for the Up-Island Council on Aging in the West Tisbury town center. Mr. Doty expressed continued skepticism about the funding model proposed by West Tisbury, in which each of up-Island town would contribute a third of funding. Susan Murphy, Chilmark’s representative on the Howes House Building Committee, encouraged the board to keep an open mind about the project. The board made no commitment at the meeting, electing to wait until more information was available.