Closing time: Williamsport School District approves Stevens’ closure
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The Williamsport Area School Board voted unanimously to close Stevens Primary School, one of the oldest buildings in the district at their meeting this week.
As she called for the roll call vote on the closure, Lori Baer, board president, called it one of the "hardest things as a board member that you do… because it affects students and affects family and affects our staff and our community," she said.
The closure becomes effective June 30.
Stevens currently has about 250 students and 34 professional and support staff in the four grade levels -- kindergarten through third grade -- that are located there. There are no furloughs anticipated with the closure.
When asked what happens next to the school building, which began its journey as a junior high in 1927, Superintendent Timothy S. Bowers said that "most of the conversations have been around selling that building...doing the best we can to make sure that it stays as a vibrant part of our community."
Bowers agreed that although it was a difficult decision, it was the correct decision.
He noted that even after it's closed, although it is no longer a school, it is still one of the district's assets. If sold, the building would then be added to the tax rolls, unless a non-profit entity purchases the property.
The question of whether to upgrade or close the Stevens began earlier this year when the architectural firm who had completed the feasibility study of district buildings revealed the cost of bringing the building up to code.
"Once we initiated the feasibility study, it really became more and more apparent that the issues in that building were very costly. As we continued the study and realized that we could certainly have room in our other primary buildings for those students, it became a pretty far stretch to spend $20 million on a building when we can surely educate those students in other facilities," Bowers said.
"I just want to emphasize that it was not to save positions, not to save those kinds of things. You know sometimes districts close buildings because they want to reduce staff. That's not the intention here -- it was never the intention here. This was really to make sure we wisely spend taxpayer money and update the buildings that need to be updated and use those spaces we currently have in a positive manner, in a very economical and feasible manner," he said.
Some of the work in anticipation of a decision to close the building has already been done, according to Bowers.
"We have done a lot of preliminary work in regards to boundaries and where students will be moved or where faculty will be moved, looking at classrooms -- all that work is preliminary. Obviously we don't want to jump ahead of this decision. We do have a lot of foundation work done. Our next step is really to launch those plans now and start facilitating that communication of where students will be moved, what assignments will occur, where classrooms are going to be moved, (and) what teacher goes where," Bowers said.
"We plan to provide a presentation on the new boundaries for our primary buildings during our June 7 board meeting. Following that meeting, we'll plan for correspondence to go to families affected by Stevens' closure, notifying them of the anticipated change of their child's home school. Any notification regarding transportation will be sent later in the summer when we traditionally send out our bussing information for the new school year," Bowers said.
There are also federal and state requirements that must be met in the process, Bowers stated.
"Those plans are being produced. They're ready to launch as soon as we get back to the table and finish them up, we'll launch them and then that will be communicated. We expect it to go very smoothly. With this vote it gives us that added push to know for sure the direction," he said.
"I want to state that we're very proud of that building," he said. "We're proud of the faculty and staff in that building. We know that the community that attends that building, supports that building, loves that building. We understand that; we recognize that. We're with you with that.
"That's not what this is about. This is a numbers game. This really shows us that $20 million to bring that building up to code when we can fit those students in other areas, in other buildings, it just wasn't the right move for taxpayers in our tax base," Bowers said.
"We're moving into this mode now where we want to communicate clearly to our families, all our faculty and staff as to what the next steps are," he added. "We know we have faculty members out there that are really anxious about what buildings they're going to go to. Many of our faculty won't get their first choice, not all of them. Obviously, that's the way things work. Many of them will get that first choice of where they would like to go. We try to accommodate that the best we can.
"We are anxious to help get planning done so they feel comfortable in their new buildings," he said.
The plans are to have faculty members box their stuff up and have it ready for members of the district's maintenance department to move to their new school.
Work is also being done on boundaries in order to be equitable in determining where students will go in the upcoming school year. Other primary schools in the district are Cochran, Hepburn-Lycoming and Jackson. Students and their families will be given the opportunity to visit their new buildings, Bowers said.