BUTLER TWP — An initial consolidation study shows there are about 7,300 students in buildings in the Butler School District that have a combined 12,000-plus student capacity.

Butler School Board members, district administrators and about 50 teachers, parents and staff heard those figures and others Wednesday evening at a meeting led by Thomas & Williamson Program Management, a Pittsburgh-based construction management firm, at the Butler High School auditorium.

The school board last year approved a 17-month consolidation study, and Wednesday night’s meeting was a 12-month update on it.

The meeting was the first of several planned to explain what’s been analyzed and what options school board members can consider.

“I thought it was a very positive meeting,” said Dale Lumley, district superintendent. “The truth of the matter is, are we using the facilities the best we can? Probably not.”

After going over population decline trends, transportation plans, spending rates and building capacity rates, Thomas & Williamson President Jon Thomas outlined five general options for school board members to consider:

• Keeping all buildings open with the same grade-level configurations.

• Closing one or more elementary schools while keeping the same configuration.

• Splitting kindergarten through third grades and fourth through sixth grades with multiple building closures, and keeping the same configuration in secondary schools.

• Splitting kindergarten through third grades and fourth through sixth grades, with the fourth through sixth graders going to the junior high school, moving seventh and eighth grades from the junior high to the intermediate high school and moving sophomores from the intermediate school to the high school.

• Splitting kindergarten through fourth grades and fifth and sixth grades, with fifth and sixth graders moving to the junior high school, seventh and eighth graders moving from the junior high to the intermediate high school, and moving tenth graders from the intermediate to the high school.

“There are several options in each one of these series,” Thomas said.

“When you start pushing those grades up in the secondary buildings, that’s when you make a great improvement” in efficiency, he said.

Lumley said the school board would have to make an initial decision by January on whether any schools would be considered for closing. Public hearings and waiting periods would have to take place before the board could make a final decision in May.

Enrollment peaked in the school district in September 1970 with 12,723 students. Ten years later in the 1979-80 school year, 10,384 students were enrolled. Another decade later in the 1990-91 school year, that number dipped to 8,300 students.

Numbers began to trend up again to 8,690 students in the 1994-95 school year, and projections in the mid 1990s showed gradually increasing enrollment. Renovations and plans correlated with those projections were done.

“The facilities were sized to accommodate an increase in enrollment,” Thomas said. “That didn’t occur.”

Currently, there are roughly 7,300 students in the district, and enrollment numbers are projected to continue a slight decline.

Further complicating matters are escalating costs.

Since 1993, wages have increased by 193 percent, benefits have increased by 325 percent, and a catch-all category called “other,” factoring things such as students leaving the district to go to special needs schools and to cyber schools, jumped by 378 percent.

When a student leaves the district to go to an alternative school, the district loses the funding per student, which is now more than $12,000, to go to the other educational institution.

“I think this is the first time that I’ve seen this in a school district,” Thomas said, referring to the dramatic increase in costs in the “other” category. He has been studying school districts for more than 20 years.

“You’ve got to do something to get those kids back in the district,” he said.

After Thomas’ presentation, board members, parents and residents stated their questions and concerns.

Beverly Peffer of Lyndora and Kim Birckbichler of Butler Township had concerns about potential increases in class sizes at the intermediate elementary school. Thomas said the target number of students in fourth, fifth and sixth grade classrooms is around 27 students.

“Apparently you’ve never done fourth grade math,” Peffer said, referring to the complications and skill levels that 27 students that age could have. A smaller class size would be easier to handle.

Birckbichler, who used to be a first and second grade teacher at McQuistion Elementary, said bigger class sizes will only exacerbate problems.

“A large class size is very difficult. I don’t know how test scores will continue to stay up,” she said.

“You hate to see a building close,” Birckbichler added, but she would understand if the district decided to do that.

Her bigger concerns, along with Peffer, involve maintaining a high quality of education.

Meridian Elementary is pegged as the school in the worst condition, and that’s where Birckbichler’s 8-year-old and 10-year-old attend.

Other than that, there’s “a lot of commonality among the buildings,” Thomas said.

No particular schools were targeted for closure at Wednesday night’s meeting, but suggestions on that issue may be presented as soon as next month.

“It sounds to me that Meridian is probably out,” Peffer said, referring to where her 11-year-old daughter attends.