AMITY >> Public feelings were mixed at the Jan. 9 Daniel Boone Area School Board meeting about the multiple future uses presented for the Birdsboro Elementary Center.
The school is still slated to be closed by the board and district in 2018 due to declining enrollment.
Superintendent James P. Harris proposed that the school be repurposed as an early-childhood center with the full-day, Pre-K Counts Standalone Center program, as a county resource center and clinic, and it would also house the district’s relocated administrative offices.
“Pre-K – with its STARS 4 rating from the state – will be there,” said Harris.
“I want Birdsboro Elementary Center to be a destination school – a community school for [possibly full-day] kindergarten through fifth grade Birdsboro students only, with no transportation, which would start the year after this ends (which is June 2018).
Harris’s recommendations came nine months after the school board announced its elementary school reconfiguration plan, which includes closing Birdsboro Elementary Center at the end of the 2017-18 school year.
Phase One has already occurred: all district kindergarten students are in the Monocacy Elementary Center, and third grade students were moved relocated this year from Birdsboro Elementary Center to the Amity Elementary Center.
Phase Two will occur next year (2017-18 school year) when Birdsboro Elementary Center’s fourth grade students are relocated to Amity Elementary Center.
Birdsboro Elementary Center’s fifth graders will be moved to Amity Elementary Center for the 2018-19 school year.
Birdsboro residents and elected officials said in a variety of public forums last spring that the loss of their community’s school would ultimately halt future residential and economic growth in the Birdsboro area.
Cindy McGee, Birdsboro Borough Council vice president, is concerned the district’s enrollment projections are too low.
A higher than expected future enrollment would then increase class sizes in the district’s remaining two elementary buildings: Amity Elementary Center and Monocacy Elementary Center.
“You presented a resolution of numbers [to close Birdsboro Elementary Center], and then six months later different projections,” said McGee, “your numbers are vastly different.”
She said there is no guarantee that a community school will be successful.
Birdsboro Borough Manager Aaron Durso expressed disappointment in the board “still discussing that our school (Birdsboro Elementary Center) is the one to be closed.”
“I think the school should stay as an elementary school. It worked then. It’s very disappointing when you represent a community. We offered snow removal, and a lot of cost saving options, but it seems like an exercise in futility — your minds are already made up.”
“The Seldomridge enrollment study in 2014 – he estimated high,” said Harris, adding that enrollment numbers have been in a constant decline since 2010.
“We are 30 lower in kindergarten. There is decline all around, but it is hitting us more severely.”
After nine months of meetings about Birdsboro Elementary Center, Harris said the district administration’s focus now is on elementary academics, enrollment, and district finances.
The district wants to strengthen core programs, increase teacher collaboration, and put an emphasis on early literacy.
Over the next 20 years, Harris said the district’s curriculum will become “real world learning” – education that is personalized and customizable, with student ownership, and which will result in increased vigor, innovative learning spaces and environments, as well as “interconnectivity” – allowing for learning at “anytime and anyplace.”
He said the reconfiguration plan provides more grade sections, classes, and seats.
“PSERS (the state’s public pension fund) – unlike enrollment – is going in the other direction, along with medical insurance and staffing costs.”
“Revenues stay flat while costs increase.”
Harris said Birdsboro Elementary Center’s structural, HVAC, and other repair costs are estimated at $1 million.
One new source of income may be from River Rock Academy, which wants to expand operations and occupy all of the former Amity Primary Center building (after the district’s administrative offices are moved to Birdsboro Elementary Center).
He said the district can “build” Birdsboro Elementary Center into a community school model; with Pre-K Counts, and one grade per year moved to Birdsboro Elementary Center beginning in 2018 or 2019.
“But, we need to have enough students to fill the building.”
“From Birdsboro’s perspective, I think this is something we could get behind – a community school – and if Birdsboro continues to grow …,” said Birdsboro Borough Councilman Steven Lusky.
“To be honest, I like that option, I like the program, and I like the idea of full-day kindergarten overall, instead of fighting it. I think the town embraces it.”
