NORTON - Selectmen are backing plans to keep a Norton High School renovation proposal in the state funding queue.

Selectmen voted Thursday night to authorize school Superintendent Patricia Ansay and the school committee to resubmit a statement of interest for the project to the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

The school committee is scheduled to take the same vote at 6:30 p.m. Monday in the Yelle Elementary School library.

The deadline is Nov. 15, Town Manager James Purcell said.

The votes do not commit Norton to funding the high school project, Selectman Robert Kimball Jr. said. Rather, the filings will keep Norton on the list for the school building authority, which provides some degree of state reimbursement for school projects it supports, he said.

"If we don't do this, we get nothing," Kimball said.

Norton officials took the same measures in 2007 and missed the cut, Purcell said.

School officials recently announced plans to renovate the high school science labs sooner rather than later, because Ansay is uncertain about state reimbursement for a school-wide project.

Painting, staining, electrical work and new tiles and tables are under way in three of the six labs, mostly by school staff and vendors, Ansay said.

Donations will be sought to help fund more extensive renovations in the other three labs. Ansay said school officials don't have a timetable for that work.

School officials are seeking estimates for all of the lab work, Ansay said.

Ansay said she also would tap the schools' facility rental fee account and the Tournament Players Club of Boston's donation to the schools.