A petition for Durham to begin the process that could lead to withdrawal from Regional School Unit 5 has the needed 214 signatures, but it’s too late to get proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot, Town Clerk Shannon Plourde said Friday.

Plourde said that she has verified the authenticity of the signatures on the petition, which was on her desk early last week.

“They’re valid, but it’s too late for November,” she said.

The Board of Selectmen could call a special election to vote on whether the town should begin to study withdrawal from the district, which also includes Freeport and Pownal. The petition has not come to their attention yet, Plourde said.

“Nobody’s moved it forward yet,” she said.

Town officials say they do not know who started the petition, which was hanging at the checkout counter of the Durham Get & Go for several weeks. Store owner Donna Church said she is not the person who started the petition, but agreed to display it in her business.

The withdrawal petition drive comes at a time when RSU 5 is going through a healing process. Freeport residents agreed late in 2013 to explore the withdrawal process, and the town set up a Withdrawal Committee. Following nearly a year of negotiations with RSU 5 school board members from Durham and Pownal, the two sides came to a withdrawal agreement. But Freeport voters narrowly decided last November that they wanted to stay with the district.

In Freeport, it was an issue of local control of the schools. Durham residents, who have almost consistently voted against RSU 5 budgets, say it’s more a matter of costs.

RSU 5 residents approved a $29.4 million budget for 2015-2016, though residents of Durham and Pownal voted against it. Overall property taxes in Durham have increased by 4.5 percent, Administrator Ruth Glaeser said.

Durham went through an abbreviated withdrawal process just three years ago. But by an 828-287 vote, residents decided that the cost of withdrawal, estimated at around $1.1 million, was prohibitive, and the withdrawal process ended there.