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School survey figures shared

Responses on consolidation

BUTLER TWP — Butler School District administrators this week released the results of two school consolidation surveys: One by the public and one by district employees.

The surveys, which were taken regarding the possible closure of a number of schools, showed that both groups have the top two concerns with this action — class size and educational programs.

Survey responses will factor into board members’ decisions on which consolidation plan they will vote for early next year.

Nearly 600 people took the public survey, and almost 500 took the employee survey. Teachers were 350 of the employees.

The results were briefly reviewed at the consolidation meeting on Monday.

“Side by side, it shows what the public is interested in, and the focus of what our employees stated as far as their interests,” said Mary Wolf, assistant superintendent.

The two groups were asked to select two top priorities among five issues: class size, educational programs, travel distance, school size and economics and taxes.

Public and employees also overwhelmingly agree on another statement: “All students in our district should have equal opportunities, resources, facilities and programs available.”

However, there are differing opinions between the public and employees on a few questions.

One was to select the preferred grade level configurations for schools.

The options were: K to 3, 4 to 6, 7 to 9, and 10 to 12; K to 4, 5 to 6, 7 to 9, and 10 to 12; K to 6, 7 to 9, and 10 to 12; and K to 6, 7 to 8, 9 to 10, and 11 to 12, which is the current grade configuration.

Of the public who answered the question, 45 percent liked the option to keep kindergarten to 6th grade schools intact and reconfigured secondary schools to 7 to 9 and 10 to 12. The next most popular option, was K to 4, which got almost 23 percent of votes.

However, 118 people skipped the question entirely.

“That’s significant,” Wolf said, explaining that there should have been another option to choose “no preference” or “other” with that question.

A few members with the Residents for Quality Schools, a group that supports keeping elementary schools K through 6 in the district, criticized the way Wolf presented the information on Monday, arguing those 118 people shouldn’t be factored into result percentages. Those people were included in her presentation.

The leading configuration option for employees was the K to 4 configuration, which had about 31 percent of the votes.

K-3 was picked by 26 percent, and 24 percent preferred keeping K to 6 and reconfiguring secondary schools.

There also were different answers with this statement: “There is an advantage to have a more diverse population in the elementary schools.”

Among employees, about 67 percent had agreement with that statement. Among the public, about 49 percent agreed.

General comments were not provided by the school district with the results, although 207 employees left comments as did 469 of the public.

Superintendent Dale Lumley said, “The primary purpose (of the surveys) was to allow members of the community to give us feedback on the proposals. Really it was to get the results to share with the board of school directors.”

The results will be available online at basdk12.org.

Butler Residents for Quality Schools presented the results of its survey to the board last month.

In October, Jon Thomas of Thomas and Williamson Project Management recommended three consolidation plans to the school board, which included closing six or seven of the 11 elementary schools and reconfiguring grades into a kindergarten through 3 or 4, 4 to 5 through 6, 7 through 9 and 10 through 12 grade model.

Those plans included closing all three of the city’s elementary schools: Broad Street, Center Avenue and Emily Brittain.

On Monday, a new plan and a revised plan were presented, including two plans that keep Emily Brittain open, and one plan that retains a K through 6 elementary configuration. Still under each of the top plans, seventh, eighth and ninth graders would attend the intermediate high school and sophomores, juniors and seniors would attend the high school.

Looking at student usage in the school buildings, the 11 elementary schools had an average 66.9 percent capacity last school year, according to the Thomas and Williamson study.

The capacity percentages at each elementary school for the 2013-14 school year are as follows, based on 20-student classrooms in K through third grade and 27-student classrooms in fourth through sixth grades. Thomas also adjusted capacity numbers at each school to include classrooms being used for other purposes:

Broad Street, 76 percent; Center Avenue, 46.5 percent; Center Township, 59.6 percent; Clearfield, 58.9 percent; Connoquenessing, 64.5 percent; Emily Brittain, 79.7 percent; McQuistion, 61.2 percent; Meridian, 78.9 percent; Northwest, 76.3 percent; Oakland, 60.9 percent; and Summit, 58.5 percent.

Lumley said the school board on Jan. 12 likely will consider what buildings might be closed.

After that, a public hearing will be Feb. 4 for any schools that are picked to be closed, with individual school visits following.

After 90 days, the school board will vote on May 11 to take action on closing those buildings.

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