Salladasburg Elementary School. KAREN VIBERT-KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette

JERSEY SHORE — It’s the final countdown to a decision. The April 24 meeting of the Jersey Shore Area School Board will be the day when a decision will be made on how the district will look going forward. Will there be three elementary schools or will one be closed? Will students be bused to other schools to even out class sizes? Those are questions that will finally — hopefully — get answered at that meeting.

Although the topic was not listed on the board’s meeting agenda this week, it came up under the heading of old business — a fitting name for an issue that has spanned almost a decade, if not more. Does the district need three elementary schools or does it need to streamline and consolidate as many other districts in the area are doing as cost-savings measures?

It was a divided board that discussed the issue at the meeting with board member Michelle Stemler opening the topic by stating that she had received emails from teachers arguing that they could do their jobs more effectively if all elementary students were in one building.

“I know that we received quite a few letters from the elementary teachers over the past month…and every single letter that came to us was asking us to support a scenario that was in the best interest of education and also offers benefits to the taxpayer and that was scenario A,” Stemler said.

Stemler then read from some of the emails: “We the teachers could truly make one heck of a team if all grade levels were together with their expertise and years of experience, the possibilities are endless with that much support.”

Stemler’s assertions were then contradicted by Board President Mary Thomas who said that she had gotten the emails also, but that she recalled that the teachers support Scenarios A and B.

Under Scenario A Salladasburg Elementary School closes. All students in kindergarten through third grade would then move to Jersey Shore Elementary and all students in grades four and five move to Avis Elementary. In Scenario B, Jersey Shore Elementary would house all students in grades three to five and Avis and Salladasburg would each have half of the students in grades K-2. Scenario C would see all three elementary buildings remain K-5, but students would be shifted to Avis and Salladasburg in order to equalize class sizes.

Board member Wayne Kinley, who has been a vocal advocate for closing Salladasburg Elementary weighed in on the discussion.

“I think we know that the principals also express their support strongly for Option A. They gave a very detailed list of reasons and a lot of them were to save cost and increase efficiency,” Kinley said.

“But I think most importantly they feel that having every grade in one school is a real plus that they can do so much more than with those students out in various schools,” he said, which seemed to concur with what Stemler said she heard from teachers.

“Let’s face it, every one of our situations will save some money. They all have educational value,” said Thomas.

“Our teachers, I believe, no matter what scenario we pick will do the best for our kids’ education. We need to believe that for our school district. No matter what scenario that we do, the teachers will pick up the ball and do what’s right for our kids,” Thomas said.

Throughout some of the board’s discussion, shouts could be heard from the public attending the meeting.

One parent stated that the banter between board members was very “stressful” and that her child, who attends Salladasburg, is also feeling the stress of not knowing if her school is going to be closed.

“My daughter keeps asking me, what are they going to do with my school,” the parent stated.

“It’s not fair because that stress that the teachers are under, gets inherently passed down to the children in their schools. So, my vote is for Scenario C where there are many benefits,” she added.

Another father said that after talking to teachers at Salladasburg, it seems like a “cloud is over their head.”

“Do we have a job? It rolls down to the kids. It’s not fair,” he said.

“It’s not fair to the people. This shouldn’t even be a discussion. The school needs to stay open. Life needs to go on. The school needs to be fixed. The teachers need to be taken care of and people need to know that they have a job,” he said.

He too agreed with equalizing the class sizes which would occur with Scenario C.

That scenario seemed to be the one that most at the meeting favored.

Moving kids around to balance class sizes seemed like a “no brainer” to former teacher Raye Bierly.

“You give all the teachers an equal chance to reach every kid. You make sure they all have the same amount of supplies per student and life goes on,” Bierly said.

“So, the only really reasonable option is Option C. It’s the least disruptive to these kids whose lives have been disrupted for several years now. It balances class sizes. It creates equity among the buildings and it makes sense,” she continued.

“So please stop moving the goalpost. Stop making this hard. Just deal with the facts,” she added.

Earlier in her comments Bierly had stated that she was glad the vote was coming next month on the issue.

“Finally, this needs to be done,” she said.