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Richard Cook, North Allegheny Patch
“The Pine-Richland School board voted unanimously Monday night to appoint Dr. Brian R. Miller to a four-year contract as superintendent of schools.
Miller, who currently is assistant superintendent of K-12 education at neighboring North Allegheny School District, begins at Pine-Richland July 1. He will be paid a salary of $153,500.”
Click here to link to the complete article.
Jessica Sinichak. Pine-Richland Patch
“On Friday evening, School Board president Peter Lyons sent an email notice to parents, which also can be found on the district’s website, informing them that the officials have narrowed their search for a new superintendent to one candidate.
The board plans to vote at Monday’s school board meeting on whether to appoint Dr. Brian R. Miller as superintendent of schools.”
Click here to link to the complete article.
I am a North Allegheny School District resident, alumnus and a parent of a daughter with special needs. I am extremely disappointed and concerned with the actions of North Allegheny‘s administration in its proposal to close Peebles Elementary School.
At the Nov. 14 school board meeting, the proposed floor plans for the remaining buildings put the hearing-impaired program into a receiving area at Hosack Elementary that currently houses cafeteria tables (aka a storage area). This was done after the administration assured the public that careful thought and consideration had been put into the placement of special needs programs.
At the Nov. 28 board meeting, Brian Miller, assistant superintendent of K-12 education, acknowledged that the district will be moving the hearing-impaired to a second-floor room at Hosack. This only came after parents mailed the floor plans to each and every board member, demanding that a change occur.
This greatly concerns me because, without parent action, the administration would have been content leaving the hearing-impaired exactly where they placed them in the storage area. This is just one example of the lack of due diligence and negligence that has taken place by the administration throughout this process.
Jamie Karlovits
McCandless
“If we close an elementary school, change will be felt throughout the system,” said Dr. Brian Miller, Assistant Superintendent for K-12 education. “If you remove a small school from our system, the entire system will be affected.” [PG Article, October 25, 2012.]
The information included on the Administration’s November 28th slides (detailed in recent posts) provides the basis for the following conclusions:
We believe that the 5 points listed above compromise the district’s ability to deliver the same level of excellence in education under the new model that it does now.
Further, the Administration’s slides illustrate that the new model cannot reasonably accommodate an increase in student enrollment. If the district grows, it could face spending more money than it saved from closing a building.
As presented to North Allegheny School District Board of School Directors on November 28, 2012.
[click here] Community Report 1
Based on current enrollment, closing a building would require the remaining buildings to operate at capacities that limit the district’s ability to manage class size and make the system dependent on spare classrooms. Under the new model, spare classrooms would be used as regular classrooms and “other spares,” such as faculty lounges and open group instructional spaces, would become potential classrooms. The rooms identified as “other spares” under the new model are not as conducive to learning as a regular classroom setting and displace programs integral to the elementary curriculum. This compromises the district’s ability to deliver excellence in education and equity across all schools.
The decision to close a school is contingent on a decline in student enrollment and relies on projections made in the Phase 2 Demographics and Feasibility Study (Phase 2 report) and projections made by the administration. The administration has a 13-year history of forecasting enrollment several hundred students below actual enrollment. The enrollment projections in the Phase 2 report are below the forecasts provided by the administration, the data used for population projections does not tie to governmental records, and there is a mathematical error in the demographic study that has a significant impact on conclusions related to future growth. Thus, both sources the district is relying on with respect to a decline in enrollment raise concern with respect to the accuracy of such projections. If current enrollment goes up, the district cannot reasonably accommodate additional students and faces spending more money than it saved from closing a building.
This report summarizes our concerns, observations, and evaluations in regards to the district’s ability to reasonably accommodate all elementary students in the remaining buildings without compromising the district’s successful elementary education model and curriculum.
1) If an elementary school is closed, the remaining buildings will have to accommodate more classes than what they were designed for; this will have a direct impact on classroom space and programs integral to the elementary curriculum.
a. The remaining buildings will have to use spare rooms as regular classrooms. For example, buildings designed to run three sections of 1st and 2nd grade would be required to run four sections under the new model (e.g. Bradford Woods, Franklin, Hosack, and Ingomar). As a result, each building will lose two of its spare rooms.
b. The loss of spare rooms means the administration has identified “other spares” to be used as classrooms. For example, at Marshall Elementary, the 4th Centrium, GOAL room, and YMCA room have been identified as spare classrooms. At McKnight elementary, the ESL room, Student Assistance Room, and faculty lounge have been identified as spare classrooms. In other buildings, spare classrooms include learning support rooms, orchestra rooms, and faculty lounges.
2) If all intended classrooms are filled to district guidelines, there are 3,960 seats under the new model and there will be limited ability to keep class sizes below district guidelines based on current enrollment.
a. The 3,960 seat capacity assumes all small elementary buildings are loaded with 540 students (e.g. Bradford Woods, Franklin, Hosack, and Ingomar). To put this in perspective, Franklin has a current enrollment of 515 students and they are currently using a faculty lounge as a classroom. If the district lowers its target to 510 students per building, they will only have 3,720 seats, which is close to current enrollment.
b. The district’s current elementary enrollment is 3,548 students, which represents 90 percent of the new capacity (3,548 current enrollment/3,960 new capacity). This will make it difficult to keep class sizes below district guidelines. For example, there are currently 638 students in third grade and there are 22 third grade classes under the new model. Assuming a perfectly equal distribution of students across buildings, there would be 29 students in every third grade class (638 students/22 sections of third grade). Without a perfectly equal distribution across buildings, several third grade classes could exceed the district guideline of 30 students per classroom.
3) If current enrollment goes up, the district would not have the ability to reasonably accommodate extra students and would face spending more money than it saved from closing a school.
a. To date, the financial benefit of closing a school has been estimated at 1% or less of the district’s annual operating budget. The district’s annual budget is approximately $126 million and cost savings are estimated at $500,000-$1.5 million.
b. The district’s ability to close a school is based on a decline in student enrollment. Given Allegheny County is experiencing positive migration, and there are new housing starts in the townships of Marshall, McCandless, and Franklin, the decision to close a school based on a model that can’t accommodate future growth could be fiscally irresponsible because the district would encounter future costs to accommodate additional students.
4) Based on the 1997 Bozzomo model- a model that uses a target capacity of 450 students (instead of 540) for each small elementary school- the remaining buildings would operate at 89% of target capacity if all buildings remain open and the district “balances enrollment” by moving students from overcrowded buildings into those that are less crowded.
a. The new model “creates capacity” by adding 90 students to each small elementary school without adding any classrooms or additional space. The new elementary education model increases the target capacity of the small elementary buildings from 450 to 540 students by using spare classrooms as regular classrooms and accepting North Allegheny School District (NASD) guidelines of 30 students in grades 3 through 5 (instead of 25 students).’
b. If enrollment at the elementary schools is considered in reference to a 450 target capacity (instead of 540), then the schools would be operating at 89% of target capacity if all buildings remain open. This is calculated by taking the balanced enrollment totals for each building (based on Mr. Botti’s November 14th presentation) and dividing by a 450 target capacity: BWE = 400/450 = 88.89%, FES = 403/450 = 89.56%, HES = 408/450 = 90.67%, IES = 401/450 = 89.11%, PES = 397/450 = 88.22%.
c. If the district keeps all elementary buildings open, only 264 students would be redistricted (instead of the estimated 503-1031 students if a building is closed).
5) Over the past few months, elementary parents have suggested other options for addressing the district’s projected budget deficits. These ideas include outsourcing transportation, advertising on the district’s website, and reducing the “other” expense items listed in the district’s budget.
***Members of the community are encouraged to attend the school board meeting on November 28th at 7pm in the Carson Middle School Auditorium and become part of the ongoing discussions surrounding this recommendation.***
North Allegheny parents hoping to get an answer to their request for a community task force’s involvement in any potential school closing decisions were left wondering again Wednesday night. The meeting, which lasted more that three hours, ended without the issue ever being addressed by the board.
As has been the pattern since the beginning of the school year, the meeting opened with a half dozen parents making impassioned pleas againt a proposed closing of one of the district’s seven elementary schools.
A consultant has recommended closing Peebles Elementary, arguing that district has too few students, and too much elementary classroom space.
At the board’s last meeting, on Oct. 24 , Dr. Brian Miller, assistant superintendent of K-12 Education, presented a nearly one-hour demographics and feasibility study which concluded that the closing of an elementary school would not increase class size, nor impact the quality of programs now offered at North Allegheny elementary schools.
Tara Fisher, a parent, suggested Wednesday night that Miller’s assessment left no room for error.
“Current enrollment, under this proposal means each elementary school will be at 90-percent of capacity,” she said. “We do not have enough excess capacity to close an elementary school building in this district. I encourage you to consider that these students get one shot at a solid elementary education, one shot at third grade, one shot at reading, writing and arithmetic, a foundation that will last them a lifetime, and we, as a North Allegheny community need to give them our best. They deserve the best, and we can not offer them the best if we close an elementary school.”
Consultant Jon Thomas told the board, that even with a slight uptick in the birth rate, he still projects that the elementary school enrollment will continue to decline.
Roger Botti, North Allegheny’s director of transportation and operations, presented four redistricting scenarios and their impact on the entire elementary school class.
Botti’s last proposal drew a round of applause.
Before the board can vote to close a school, it must hold at least one public hearing, advertised at least 15 days in advance. The board cannot vote for at least three months after the hearing, and so far, board President Maureen Grosheider has indicated the board doesn’t have enough information to make a decision.
Parents, such as Wendy Lukish, said they would continue to fight any school closing, insisting it will lead to overcrowded classrooms.
“How are our teachers going to be able to teach? They’re not going to be good at it and our children are going to suffer,” she said. “My husband is a graduate of North Hills and when we were looking for homes, we had to decide between North Hills or North Allegheny. Not being from Pennsylvania, I didn’t know any different, and my husband said, North Allegheny is an elite school, we need to live in that district. So we moved here. So I implore you to look at these numbers, look at what these schools are going to look like, and that people are going to suffer, as will the future of this district.”
For more information on parent’s efforts to form a community task force about the proposed school closings, click www.saveNAschools.com.
We cannot urge you enough to attend this meeting.
It is important that we demonstrate by our sheer numbers that we stand together as a community and that the Superintendent and the School Board are put on notice that the recommendation to close Peebles Elementary directly affects our children and our neighborhoods. The plan to close Peebles is in no way “a done deal”– and we can make a difference by our presence.(Parking will be tight that morning. You may want to plan to park at Memorial Park Church, and walk over to the school.)
save NA schools 