Parents want community schools
CENTER TWP — About 50 parents in the Butler School District who met Thursday evening say they want the district to keep the kindergarten through sixth grade neighborhood school model.
They met in reaction to a consultant firm's recommendations last week that would close many of the district's elementary schools.
Kris Paserba, a Meridian resident who led the discussion, said the group is in agreement that they favor keeping the neighborhood school model.
“We don't want to have a massive overhaul of our program,” he said. “We'd like to get a proposal together as quickly as possible.”
The Pittsburgh-based firm Thomas and Williamson last week presented a number of plans, three it recommended, for the school board to consider to get better use out of the district's 14 school buildings.
Those buildings average about 55 percent capacity because of a decline in student enrollment over the years.
The three recommended plans would close six or seven of the district's 11 elementary schools, and reconfiguring grades at the primary and secondary levels.
All the plans would close Broad Street, Center Avenue, Clearfield, Emily Brittain, Meridian and Oakland elementary schools, and one plan also would close Summit elementary.
The remaining four elementary schools, Center Township, Connoquenessing, McQuistion and Northwest, would take in students from those closed schools.
Paserba instead suggested that the junior high along with a few elementary schools should be considered for closure since that could save as much money as the recommended plans, about $5 million.
“We want to try to get something to the school board,” he said of the counter plan. “We'd like to get a proposal together as quickly as possible.”Anne Baker of Meridian who has had children and grandchildren go through the school district, said more than statistics should be considered in making a consolidation decision.“They were hired to look at the numbers,” she said of the consultants. “You have to take into consideration not just the numbers, but the quality of education, the smaller class sizes.”Parents from Oakland, McQuistion, Emily Brittain, Northwest and Meridian elementary schools were at the meeting. The group has been communicating and sharing information through a Facebook page called the “Butler Area Schools Info Page,” which had more than 1,500 likes as of Thursday.In addition of being proponents of the community schools, most parents Thursday night were leery about the idea of having fourth, fifth and sixth graders potentially in the junior high school building downtown.“I live 1.3 miles from the junior high,” said Brenda Michaux, who has a 10th grader, as well as a kindergartner, a second grader and a fifth grader at McQuistion Elementary.She said she would question her children's safety walking that distance that has inconsistent street lighting and sidewalks, and “Megan's Law violators.”“There's nothing more wonderful than having a school near your home that's safe,” said Janet White, whose children, a first and a third grader, attend Meridian.White said she appreciates the mentorship programs offered between older and younger students at the school, and the close bond between other parents and teachers. All of that could be lost without a community school.Several parents said they would consider private and cyber schools if one of the recommended Thomas and Williamson plans is approved.“I feel for what all these other people are going through,” Baker added. “It's not just a parent thing. It's a community thing.”The next meeting to focus on school consolidation plans is at 6 p.m. Nov. 5 at the intermediate high school auditorium. Another meeting is set for Nov. 24.
