BUTLER TWP — Longtime Emily Brittain teacher Paula Baptiste packed more than 40 boxes of her classroom supplies for her move across Main Street to the Butler School District’s new middle school.

Butler teachers have packed thousands of boxes, each labeled with color coded dots by building, to prepare for the districtwide consolidation plan that takes effect in three months.

“For a lot of us, it was an emotional time,” Baptiste said of packing. “Our classrooms are more than four walls. It’s a place where we developed relationships with children over the years. And with colleagues.”

Her boxes, labeled with purple dots, were filled with textbooks, workbooks, rulers, staplers and other classroom supplies.

The labeling is all part of an aggressive transition plan over the summer so teachers and students are ready to go this fall.

Between school closings, grade configurations, teacher reassignments and student redistricting under the consolidation plan, many items and materials must be moved to different buildings.

The school board in May approved closing five of the district’s 11 elementary schools this month: Broad Street, Center Avenue, Clearfield, Meridian and Oakland. Meanwhile, grades at both the primary and secondary levels will be reconfigured this fall, and the Center Avenue School building will be repurposed into an alternative and special needs school.

Before any boxes were moved, teacher and student transition sessions got them familiar with their new surroundings. Elementary students toured their new schools, fourth and fifth graders got to see the new middle school, and teachers and staff spent a half day at their new schools, meeting their principal and colleagues.

Moving began two days after the last day of school. Teachers labeled boxes with the color-coded system — the old building and the new building, the old room number and the new room number listed on each box. The plan is to have all of the moving done by the end of July.

Dale Lumley, superintendent, said parents will be sent a newsletter in August notifying them of the transition progress.

“We have a pretty meticulous system down right now for all of the movement,” he said.

Glenn Terwilliger, maintenance director for the district, said the moving is already ahead of schedule.

Moving started at the secondary levels and will move down through the elementary grades. When possible, emptying a building will be done first before filling the other to avoid confusion.

There are 12 part-time summer maintenance workers who move items for about five-and-a-half hours a day, Monday through Friday. Two truck drivers who are full-time district employees are transporting boxes.

Terwilliger said, “Every summer is our busiest time. That’s really when we can get things accomplished and completed, when the building is empty and the kids aren’t here.

“We’re just doing something different from what we normally do.”

Summer workers often paint at the schools or fill in for full-time custodians who are on vacation.

An administrative transition team has been meeting weekly since February, reviewing plans and going over details that may have been overlooked.

Mary Wolf, assistant superintendent for elementary education, said, “Our staff has been wonderful in working together so that this transition takes place as smoothly as possible.

“I mean, there will be bumps along the road, but we meet weekly with the supervisory staff and everyone knows what the expectations are.

“We inform each other about what is happening, and based on the information we’re receiving, we’re packed and ready to go, and I think we can do it successfully,” she said.

In addition to the move itself, there are other changes. There will be new bus routes that are divided by grade levels — kindergarten through fourth grade, fifth and sixth grade, and seventh through 12th grade.

Buses will be provided for most middle school students who live within a couple block radius of the school, Lumley said.

A public bus route will be added to stop at Center Township Elementary three times a day so parents in Butler who don’t have a vehicle will have a way to get to and from their child’s school.

Student registration now will take place at the district administration building, rather than in the individual schools to streamline that process.

There’s also the transition at the schools that are now vacant: Broad Street, Clearfield, Meridian and Oakland. They already are being prepped for sale.

The school board June 15 approved two appraisers, David King of Nicklas King McConahy and Kyle McCown of Dan McCown and Co., to assess the schools. They need to do that within 30 days to determine each school’s worth.

But there still will be maintenance done at each of the buildings. Lumley referred to the process as “mothballing.”

“We will have to maintain utilities there, a phone line there for calls. A maintenance person will be there daily to monitor the situation, run water,” he said.

At the end of the summer, the week before school starts, open house sessions are planned at the elementary schools and the middle school for parents to see their child’s school before they begin attending, Wolf said.

Center Township, Connoquenessing, Emily Brittain, McQuistion, Northwest and Summit will have open houses from 6 to 7:15 p.m. Sept. 3; middle school fifth grade parents will have tours from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Sept. 3; and middle school sixth grade parents will have tours from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Sept. 4.

Secondary open house tours will be in October.

Overall, the administration is confident all of the changes are for the better.

“It’s a good plan and it’s an aggressive plan,” Lumley said.

“We’ll be ready to accept students when they get here on Sept. 8.”

While moving was difficult for some teachers, Baptiste said all of the changes are for the best.

“We need to move forward, and we are moving forward,” she said.