Today is the last day to call the school board office to register to speak at the meeting on Wednesday, December 19th. Please call 412-369-5437 and request to speak at the BEGINNING of the meeting. We need every parent to advocate for their child by standing up and asking school board members to vote against scheduling a public hearing.
The recommendation to close an elementary school moves students into non-classroom spaces for direct instruction. This is simply unacceptable. Every child in the North Allegheny school district deserves to be in a classroom to learn.
If Peebles had been closed this year, the following non-classrooms would have been used:
- Marshall would have had to operate a class out of their 4th Centrium (large group instructional space)
- Marshall would have had to operate another class out of their GOAL room
- McKnight elementary would have had to operate a class out of their ESL room
Under the new model, the remaining buildings are pushed so close to their Pennsylvania Department of Education gross capacities that only non-classrooms remain as “spare” classrooms.
- Hosack would only have one spare classroom available; it’s the learning support room
- Marshall would only have one spare classroom available; it’s the YMCA room
- Ingomar would only have two spare classrooms available; one does not have windows and the other is the GOAL room
- McKnight would only have two spare classrooms available; one is the faculty lounge and the other is the student assistance room
- Bradford Woods would only have two spare classrooms available; one is the Life Skills room and the other is the GOAL room
- Franklin would only have two spare classrooms available; one is a faculty lounge and its only 645 square feet
There is no cost savings or operational efficiency benefit that can justify compromising the education of our elementary school students.
If the Administration and Board have run out of ideas, why not bring the community on board to help brainstorm ways to keep this district strong in light of trying economic times? Why not establish a community task force to review every line item in the district’s budget and determine where we need to set our priorities? Why are we in such a rush to do something as drastic and irreversible as closing a school after seeing how detrimental the impact will be on our elementary students?
save NA schools 