MEADVILLE — After providing an elementary education for children in the City of Meadville for 86 years, the doors of East End Elementary School will officially close on June 9, one day after the end of the 2011-12 school year.

By a vote of 7 to 2, Crawford Central School Board signaled the end of an era during its monthly meeting Monday night. David Miller and Richard Curry cast dissenting votes.

“RESOLVED, that, for financial reasons and to more efficiently utilize classroom space within the elementary schools of the Crawford Central School District, the Board of School Directors of Crawford Central School District hereby permanently closes East End Elementary School on June 9, 2012, which is the day after the last day of school for the 2011-12 school year.”

Constructed in 1926, East End was renovated in 1950 and 1987, added to in 1965 and updated and expanded — 6,000 square feet in additions — in 2009.

Although almost a dozen East End residents were in attendance, Chestnut Street resident Amy Decker spoke on behalf of the group. Accompanied to the podium by her husband, Marty, Decker accused this and previous boards of decades of mismanagement and described the current board as out of touch. “Have any of you spoken to people out there?” she wanted to know. “Since the renovation, they (residents of the district) think that East End is not the school to close.”

Decker also wanted an explanation of how the $2 million in anticipated savings was calculated — pointing out that the cost to the district of using Second District Elementary School will be greater than closing Second District and keeping students in East End because three more teachers will be required for the school’s three additional classrooms.

Superintendent Charlie Heller explained that the $2 million in anticipated savings was based on the number of classrooms occupied with four of five of the district’s Meadville/Vernon Township attendance area elementary schools occupied, noting that the savings started this year with the closing of West End Elementary School in Vernon Township for renovations and will carry over to future years.

For the 2011-12 school year, West End students in kindergarten through fifth grade were housed in Second District Elementary School, and sixth-graders were housed in First District Elementary School. A complete re-districting of Meadville-area elementary students, including those attending Neason Hill Elementary School in West Mead Township, resulted in a student population assigned to East End for the current school year that will form the new student body at Second District beginning with the 2012-13 school year.



A difficult decision

It was not an easy vote for anyone.

“I have sat in those seats before,” said Meadville Mayor Christopher Soff, who held a seat on Crawford Central School Board from 1993 to 1997 and watched the session on television. “I know that that decision was not an easy one. I understand that sometimes those decisions need to be made because all of we elected officials are required to look at the totality of the areas which we represent. There’s always far more to every decision and discussion than our local elected officials tend to be given credit for — I’m sure whatever decisions they arrived at were not arrived at easily.”

“Is (Gov. Tom Corbett) attempting to destroy public education in Pennsylvania?” Curry wanted to know after the vote was complete. “My vote is not against Charlie Heller or our administrators. It’s my way of thumbing my nose at Gov. Corbett and the cronies who surround him — including (Rep. Brad) Roae.”



More steps ahead

Monday’s vote, however, doesn’t quite mark the end of the road.

“Another step in the process has been completed — but it’s not the end of the process,” President Jan VanTuil said. At the board’s May 14 work session, she added, the board will start to address how the change will take place.

Pennsylvania’s School Code includes precise steps to be followed whenever the closing of a school is proposed. The procedure begins with a recommendation from the superintendent to close the school; approval by the school board for a public hearing to be conducted on the recommendation; three-month “cooling-off” period for the board to analyze the recommendation and gather public input; a final vote by the board; and approval from Pennsylvania Department of Education.

With the final vote complete, administrators will now prepare the PDE application.

Because the district is receiving reimbursement from the state that defrays approximately one-third of the cost of the recent alternations and additions, plans also call for the administration to ask PDE to continue the scheduled reimbursement payments.

According to the school code, “When a school district closes a school building upon which it is receiving school building reimbursement, the Department may — upon receipt of justification — authorize the continuation of reimbursement payments thereon. In the absence of such Department authorization, reimbursement shall cease following the amortization payment which next falls due. Should the building be reopened for use as a public school, reimbursement shall be reinstated for amortization payments which fall due following such reopening.”

As for the future of the building, President Jan VanTuil has stressed repeatedly that the search for a new use for the building cannot begin until PDE formally authorizes the closure.



Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.