Sobbing over a school
Parents emotional as meeting tackles possible closingBy ANNA TELATOVICH - atelatovich@sungazette.com
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A three-hour-long public meeting, filled with tears, shouting and pleading took place in the Loyalsock Valley cafeteria Thursday night to discuss the potential closing of the elementary school on Route 87.
“We’re not going down without a fight,” one mother said while walking toward the school, filled with hundreds of parents, guardians and alumni.
Vern McKissick, owner of McKissick Associates architectural firm in Harrisburg, presented the crowd with three options from which the board may choose. The options, which will determine the fate of Montoursville’s elementary students, are from a feasibility study.
Under-used and aging buildings prompted the feasibility study.
Option one is “deferred maintenance,” which includes mechanical, architectural and code upgrades for each of the district buildings, depending on what each one needs. Project costs to the district would be about $17 million.
Option two is the “status quo,” which would provide building upgrades to meet the status quo, which means Loyalsock Valley Elementary would need the most work. A 6,500-square-foot addition and major renovation, plus upgrades to other buildings would cost the district about $21.6 million.
Option two would mean a .918 mill tax increase, or $158.82 per year on an average parcel, McKissick said.
Option three is where parents and loyal Loyalsock Valley supporters get concerned. This option would close Loyalsock Valley, house all kindergarten through second-grade students at Lyter Elementary and house third- through eighth-grade students at McCall in two separate buildings, one for grades three through five and one for grades six through eight.
The cost to close “the valley,” as its supporters call the school, and restructure grades would be about $22.9 million to the district.
A 1.02 mill tax increase would cost residents an extra $170.24 a year, according to McKissick.
“You will be able to speak,” Superintendent Dominic Cavallaro told the group. “We want your opinion ... No decision has been made.”
And they spoke. When men and women voiced their concerns for students riding buses, for younger students being affected by older students, for the level of education and safety, applause, cheers and a sober school board was the response.
“Why would you let 8-year-olds go to school with 13-year-olds?” one unidentified woman asked.
“Our plan is not to put third to fifth graders with sixth through eighth,” McKissick said.
A shift in the crowd including murmurs of “yeah, right” showed that parents don’t believe older students will leave younger children’s language and behavior unaffected.
Two separate cafeterias and serving lines, two gyms and two school entrances were ways McKissick said students would be kept separate.
The library at McCall would have two separate collections separated by a wall to keep students from interacting.
“I think it’s a shame that schools are starting to be run like businesses,” said Kirk Bower, a parent of Loyalsock Valley Elementary students. With walls separating students, he said the layouts felt “like a prison.”
Bower said the noise level at the middle school is high to begin with and “to be honest, the middle school does not need any more noise than it already has.”
For Claudia Sacavage, a Loyalsock Valley parent, “it’s important that elementary minds aren’t exposed to middle-school problems.”
An unidentified woman said: “Our third- and fourth-grade kids don’t need to be down there. They have enough problems already.”
Extended bus commutes were a worry for many parents — 100 percent of Loyalsock Valley students are bused or driven by parents or guardians.
Sacavage said her second-grade son would have a two-hour commute each day if he were bused to a school in the borough. Other parents said their children are afraid to ride the bus with older students.
Parents said they choose to live in the rural setting and their “children shouldn’t be punished” with long bus rides because of it.
“Traffic is a nightmare,” one mother said. “It’s dangerous now.” McKissick said that staggered dismissal times would cut down on the number of vehicles there at one time.
Parents were assured that class sizes would not increase above the district’s standards and that teaching staff numbers would remain the same.
The monetary cost of school renovation or a tax increase did not seem to bother any parent in the group. “I don’t think any parent there would want to see it shut down,” said Patsy Schmalhofer, parent-teacher organization president. “Our concern is not the dollar. Our concern is the children. As a parent, when my child needed extra help, it was there for him and now he is just flourishing. Our concern is that our school stays open for our kids.”
Every member of the board, except for Gary Stiner who was coaching in Jersey Shore, was present.
Robert H. Lorson, school board president, said the evening opened his mind. “I’ve got a full page of comments that I didn’t think about, that you’ve brought up.” The more Lorson thought about the comments the more he realized their weight and validity, he said.
The final show of support for Loyalsock Valley came from about 20 of its teachers. Their rallying cry was “Please, with all due respect, do not close our school.”
Emotions were high because of the sense of community at the school, Schmalhofer said. “That is one thing about the valley, it definitely a close-knit family.” Teachers and parents wiped tears from their eyes during the faculty’s impassioned pleas.
Another public meeting is scheduled at Lyter Elementary School for 7 p.m. next Thursday. Schmalhofer said she expects an even larger crowd and for Loyalsock Valley parents to be in attendance to support Lyter parents, whose third- and fourth-grade students could be affected by the closing of Loyalsock Valley.
