Town meeting season opens next week with voters in three Island towns convening Tuesday night to consider operating budgets and capital funding for a handful of projects and to weigh ending sales on-Island of miniature liquor bottles.

Voters will gather in Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and West Tisbury on April 11. Meetings start at 7 p.m. in Edgartown at the Old Whaling Church and Oak Bluffs at the high school performing arts center, and at 6 p.m. at the West Tisbury School.

Tisbury, Chilmark and Aquinnah are all set to meet later this spring.

One of the only Islandwide issues being considered this year is the future of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School building. All six towns have been asked to share the costs of a $2 million feasibility study to look at the possible replacement or reconstruction of the high school in Oak Bluffs.

Built in 1959, the building’s inner workings, including systems that handle heating, moisture control and hot water, are reaching the end of their life.

“We’re at the point where there needs to be a significant reinvestment,” said Mark Friedman, the district finance manager.

School committee member Kimberly Kirk said that the request for funding that will appear on all of the town meeting warrants this spring is essential to get the ball rolling on revamping the school, which was last updated in 1995.

“This feasibility study will allow us to take the first step,” she said.

Five of the towns will also vote on a new regional cost-sharing agreement for the school project that requires approval across the Island; Oak Bluffs has already ratified the agreement, voting at a special town meeting last November.

The new agreement fixes some old language  — the town of Gay Head will be updated to Aquinnah — but one of the larger pieces is changing how enrollment is tallied. In the past there was a student count in October that was used to generate the individual town assessments.

The new agreement lays out a new three-year rolling average, allowing for a “plateau effect” that can avoid erratic jumps in student counts and subsequently town costs, said schools superintendent Richard Smith.

It also gives a new breakdown of how much each town would pay for the high school project. If approved, Aquinnah would pay 2.4 per cent, Chilmark 8.26 per cent, Edgartown 30.12 per cent, Oak Bluffs 22.89 per cent, Tisbury 22.9 per cent and West Tisbury 13.42 per cent.

If the towns agree to fund the study and sign onto the new agreement, the school would be potentially eligible for a reimbursement of up to 38 per cent of construction costs from the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

The feasibility study would help determine what a project looks like, whether it’s a new building, a renovation or a combination of the two, according to Mr. Smith.

A similar attempt to fund a feasibility study was done in 2019. It passed in every town but Oak Bluffs, where there was pushback about the high school funding formula.

If approved, the new funding formula would have Oak Bluffs paying about $457,800, Edgartown $602,400, Tisbury $458,000, West Tisbury $268,400, Chilmark $165,200 and Aquinnah $48,000.

The high school has been a priority for school officials for going on seven years, but has been rejected by the Massachusetts School Building Authority several times, in part because of lack of Islandwide agreement on the funding formula.

If passed in all the towns, the school could work with the building authority and start the process of hiring a project manager and architecture firm to lead the study later this summer.

“This is such a huge opportunity for the Island,” Ms. Kirk said. “The feasibility study will help us build the framework of what this is going to look like.”