Education was in the spotlight throughout Butler County in 2014.

The biggest issue continues as the Butler School Board is considering closing numerous schools. A decision is expected in early 2015.

A consulting firm proposed several consolidation plans to the board.

Most of the attention is on the 11 elementary schools which have kindergarten through sixth grade.

A proposal would close five to seven of those schools and the remaining schools would change to a K to 3 or K to fourth-grade format with fifth- and sixth-grade students going to the junior high school building. Consolidation of grades in the intermediate and high schools also would occur.

Community members have taken issue with several aspects of the plans, including bus commute times, safety and the loss of neighborhood schools. Butler could lose all three of its elementary schools.

The community group Butler Residents for Quality Schools, wants the board to keep the K through 6 configuration in the elementary grades.

District officials cite decreasing enrollment along with increasing health care and retirement costs as reasons to consolidate and close schools.

North Catholic opens

The other major educational event of 2014 was that the Diocese of Pittsburgh completed a $70 million project that had been years in the making: moving North Catholic High School to Cranberry Township.

The school, which was renamed Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School in 2013, had been in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh since 1939 before the move.

The new building, which is 185,000 square feet, can accommodate 1,000 students. The first school year kicked off Sept. 2 with 293 students.

The school’s namesake, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, visited and dedicated the school Sept. 28.

Freeport starts building

The Freeport School District is building a new $33 million middle school a few hundred feet from the high school campus in Buffalo Township.

The 115,000-square-foot building is scheduled to open next year. It will serve sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Currently, sixth-graders are in the elementary schools, and the junior high school in Freeport has seventh- and eighth-graders.

The junior high in Freeport will close when the new middle school opens.

Leadership changes

There were a number of changes in school administrators in 2014.

Dale Lumley was named the new Butler superintendent in March. His five-year contract began July 1.

He was previously the superintendent at the South Butler School District, but has Butler roots. Lumley is a Butler High School graduate, and he worked as a teacher and administrator at the high school for 25 years.

Lumley replaced Mike Strutt, who retired.

At the South Butler School District, Mike Leitera was named superintendent in March, shortly after Lumley took the Butler position.

Leitera had been the assistant superintendent at South Butler since 2011.

The Mars School District again is looking for a new superintendent after Jim Budzilek resigned in October after one and a half years on the job. Budzilek left to take a position with an IT company.

Former Superintendent Bill Pettigrew is the acting superintendent during the interim.

The Slippery Rock School District also got a new superintendent. Alfonso Angelucci, who was previously the superintendent at the Union School District in Lawrence County, was hired in May. His three-year contract began July 1.

Angelucci replaced Kathy Nogay, who retired.

Also, teachers in the Slippery Rock district got a new three-year contact in August, which began retroactively on July 1, 2013.

Grove City College named a new president in May: lawyer and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.

McNulty graduated from the college in 1980 and has been a trustee there since 2004. He is the school’s ninth president.

$1M donations made

Grove City also received a $1 million donation from Richard Staley. He split his gift, with $750,000 going to a laboratory in STEM Hall, the college’s new science, technology, engineering and mathematics building that opened in August, and $250,000 to the college’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.

Staley earned a degree in chemical engineering from Grove City College in 1962.

Another $1 million gift was also made, this time in Butler County.

In July, Butler County Community College received a $1 million donation, the college’s largest gift in history, from entrepreneur Robert Heaton.

The money will go to the college’s $4.7 million library project to be completed by 2016.

The college changed the name of its library to the Heaton Family Learning Commons.

Regarding another financial issue, Slippery Rock University balanced its $114.5 million budget for the 2013-14 school year through increasing online programs, accepting more students and reducing staff costs through attrition.

A $5.2 million deficit had been projected the year before.

Eagle staff writer Joe Genco contributed to this report.