MANDATA - It's been a back-and-forth, "will-they-wont-they?" process for many months as the Line Mountain School Board considers the future of the Dalmatia and Leck Kill elementary schools. A public hearing Tuesday night is the necessary first step if the board decides to follow through on a plan to save nearly $500,000 by closing the two buildings.
Line Mountain school directors and administration have been the target of criticism from those in the district who want to keep the buildings open. With emotions high and tempers flaring, those opposed to the project will have their chance to voice their opinions at the 6:30 p.m. public hearing, which will be held in the junior-senior high school auditorium.
"Our children and grandchildren have become nothing but nameless, faceless little beings who each represent dollar signs. The board gives no thought to shipping them like cattle around the school district with no consideration for the amount of time and miles they will spend daily traveling to and from school," said Cheryl Lesher, of Klingerstown, who has been circulating flyers against the consolidation.
Guy E. Schreffler, of Rebuck, who organized a petition to keep Leck Kill open, said he has obtained 400 signatures and expects more by Tuesday night's meeting.
"They just spent $1.2 million two years ago (to fix Leck Kill) and now they want to close it? What kind of common sense is that?" he said.
The current $5.6 million plan would close the two schools in the summer before the 2013-14 school year. All students in kindergarten through fourth grade would be sent to Trevorton Elementary School and fifth- and sixth-grade students would join seventh- and eighth-graders at the high school.
A four-classroom addition would be built at a cost of $1.9 million at the northwest corner of Trevorton Elementary School near the intersection of Shamokin (Route 225) and Sixth streets to bring the total classroom numbers to 31.
A nine-classroom addition costing $3.6 million would be built at the southwest corner of the high school in the seventh- and eighth-grade wing, increasing the total classrooms there to 21.
Dalmatia Elementary School, built in 1934, is a 36,000-square-foot building located at 162 School Road, Dalmatia. Leck Kill Elementary School, built in 1900, is a 13,350-squre-foot building located at 3664 Old State Road, Leck Kill.
"People feel like they no longer have a voice. They feel like no listens to them," Lesher said.
Issue long debated
However, consolidation in Line Mountain School District is not a new subject, Superintendent Dave Campbell said in an interview with The News-Item this week.
In fact, an article in the Nov. 26, 1993, edition of The Citizen Standard about Line Mountain school board decisions could have been accurately published this year.
"The Line Mountain School District is currently examining several options to cope with aging buildings and space problems in some buildings. A decision on these matters will be made in the near future," the article read.
In 1966, Mahanoy Joint and Trevorton districts merged to form Line Mountain as part of the Pennsylvania School District Reorganization Act of 1963, a mandated initiative to combine smaller school districts into larger schools in the interest of cost efficiency and better educational opportunities.
At the time of the jointure, the former Mahanoy Joint High School became Line Mountain High School and the former Trevorton High School was converted to a middle school. The four elementary schools in the district were located in West Cameron, Leck Kill, Dalmatia and Trevorton. West Cameron Elementary School closed in 2001.
"Schools have been combining and closing. This is an evolving process. We were once a lot of different schools. We were successful prior, during and after these changes," Campbell said.
Years of debate
There have been months - even years - of discussion on consolidating the elementary school buildings.
In 2007, because to intense community opposition, the school board voted to keep the three elementary schools open and renovate each building. It cost $9.6 million to renovate the high school in Mandata and add a seventh- and eighth-grade wing in 2009, $7.4 million to renovate Trevorton Elementary School in 2009 and $1.1 million to renovate Leck Kill Elementary School in 2010.
However, when it came to Dalmatia, the cost to renovate ($6.3 million) was only $1.7 million less than building a completely new building.
With continued increases in salaries due to contract negotiations, the district's contributions to health care and pension benefits and general operating expenses, combined with a governor's budget announced in 2011 that would take state subsidy back to 2007-08 level funding, Campbell said it made sense to abandon the Dalmatia project and explore the consolidation option again.
The school district could save nearly $500,000 in operational costs and staff reduction by closing Dalmatia and Leck Kill schools, Campbell said.
If the district doesn't find ways to save money, Campbell said more teachers and programs will have to be cut. Last year, the school board voted to reduce the district staff from 112 to 99 personnel.
Operating expenses
Considering what it costs to pay for utilities and the Internet, closing Leck Kill would save the district $41,400 and closing Dalmatia would save $113,400.
Under this scenario, at least nine employee positions would be eliminated or not replaced, including two custodians, two aides, four cafeteria employees, a nurse and two retiring/resigning teachers, which totals approximately $250,000.
Additionally, by shrinking the construction project, another $90,000 each year already budgeted goes back into the budget.
"There are no new taxes. Each and every penny for this is already in the budget," Campbell said, noting the millage increase for the project was already implemented for Dalmatia.
Other positives for consolidating the schools would be having all grade alignments in the same building with equal number of students in each grade, and teachers, principals and other employees would all be under the same roof, Campbell said.
Consolidating takes away the variables of one grade section doing better than another and allows the sharing of everyone's resources, Campbell said.
The goal to get across Tuesday night is summarized in continuing to provide a quality education for all children while centralizing grade levels, saving programs, cutting costs and maintaining small class sizes, Campbell said.
In other words, Campbell said he wants everyone to start thinking about the "big picture."
Concerns
Despite Campbell's explanation of cost savings and positive education benefits, school director Lauren Hackenburg is not convinced the plan is the way to go.
"I'm opposed to where we're at and where we're going. Times are tough economically, I understand that. I can respect that there's an effort here to do something less expensive," she said. "It's still going to cost the district money, and it's not in the best interest of the kids and the taxpayers."
In the short term, the current plan makes fiscal sense, she said.
"But in the long term, it will end up costing more financially and emotionally," she said.
Hackenburg said more effort needs to be put into locating a property for a centralized elementary school. If that option isn't feasible, there should be two elementary schools - buildings on opposite sides of the district.
Putting all the elementary students in the district on an entire city block in Trevorton is not a good idea, she said.
Furthermore, she has concerns about loss of playground and parking space and accessibility for children with handicaps.
"We need to slow down, take a few years and make a long-term plan for the elementary schools. There's too much work to be done," she said.
Long rides
Mallory Wiest, of Klingerstown, has a daughter who will be starting elementary school in two years, and she said her heart will break if she has to tell her Leck Kill will be closed.
"It's the most family-orientated elementary school I have ever seen. I can't even believe they would think about closing it," she said.
If the proposed plan is executed, Wiest is afraid her daughter will have to spend more than an hour on the bus with older students.
"You cannot have them on the bus together. Things will be taught that shouldn't be taught. There's too much influence," she said.
Her concern about long bus rides and younger students mixing with older students has been expressed by other residents at various school board meetings in the last year.
Campbell explained that 12 of the 18 bus runs are already 52 minutes or longer, some more than an hour. He promised, however, that all runs would be less than 60 minutes if there were only two drop-off points - Trevorton and Mandata.
Approximately half the school districts in the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit have a kindergarten through 12th-grade run, he said.
"They take steps to ensure the safety of all kids, and we will take steps to ensure the safety of the kids," Campbell said.
He said students are exposed to more "social ills" by cell phones, television and movies and Internet usage than at school.
"Here they're monitored. On the bus they're monitored," he said.
The seventh- and eighth-grade students have a separate wing in the high school building away from the older students. They share space for certain special classes or lunch, but never at the same time and they do not have the same routes to get from place to place.
In fact, Campbell said, the high school students are penalized if they enter the younger students' wing.
The majority of older students drive their own vehicles to and from school and are rarely on the bus. More than half of the buses that pulled out of the Mandata school property Tuesday were not filled.
As far as older students dating younger students, the district cannot stop that, Campbell said.
"We keep them apart, but what they do outside the school is the parents' responsibility," he said.
There are more positives than negatives, he said, and everyone is focused on the schools instead of what can be done in terms of curriculum.
"Let us worry about the management of the kids," he said.
Input from volunteers
Lesher, who is not pleased with the board's solutions or how it has communicated with taxpayers, offered the board a few suggestions.
"I am for a property committee composed of volunteer community members to meet with the architects and project managers, review blueprints, make concerns known and then present their recommendations to the school board before any and all project are done," she said.
A volunteer group of community members should review the budget and all financial dealings with a fresh set of eyes, she said.
"I think this board and its leaders need be watchdogged with no ifs, ands or buts in order to regain the taxpayers' trust. I would like to see absolute transparency in all financial and business decisions," she said.
Campbell challenged anyone with questions or concerns to visit him at his office; they may even drop by unannounced, he said.
"I'll give information to any partent who wants it. They can have anything. Take the data. Look at it. Come in and grill me," he said.
The minutes from each board meeting where this has been discussed are available for public record. The school budget is available online through the district's website and at all four buildings for public display.
"This isn't a secret," he said.
Since a decision cannot be legally made at Tuesday's public hearing, the board must wait three months before voting to officially close the schools.