Consolidation

[Manfred]

Many of the smaller districts are POOR districts, and some of you want to just pluck 60 million out of thin air to justify your consolidation diatribe. Have any of you looked at the current tax bases, employment % for residents in the stated districts? This area is NOT Allegheny or Dauphin counties, people. Dreamers.

[CRBL Baseball]

Bedford & Chestnut Ridge consolidation with a new high school only in Cessna at intersection of I-99 & 56. Let the grade school & middle school students at their current Districts and 9th-12th grades at the new high school. Each District has 2 good building structures to accommodate the grade school / middle school approach - Bedford with their current structures as is. CR could consolidate grade schools to the current middle school complex & middle school to the high school complex. The Bedford / CR consolidation could also take Kimmel Township students in Bedford County under this consolidation.

Everett, NBC & Tussey could also be consolidated as one District.

The current mountain range that runs on the east side of I-99 would support these 2 consolidations very easily.

Somerset County could be consolidated into 4 Districts from the current 11 Districts in this county school structure.

[coachcarter]

There is a freeze on state contributing funds on new construction. However, if and when school district would begin consolidating then I believe the purse strings would open up.

[CRWizard]

The problem with most peoples thinking is that when you consolidate, you have to build brand new buildings for everyone immediately. People also assume there will be savings immediately.

For example. If CR and Bedford were to consolidate, there would be no reason to close either HS for 10-12 years. They have been recently renovated. Some schools in Somerset, i.e windber, shade, shanksville, need upgraded and it would be logical to build a new HS for them if they were to consolidate.

What would need to happen first is to have county-wide school districts. One county-wide school board with one set of taxes.
And I really don't see any of this happening without legislative action in Harrisburg.

[odoyelrules]

Many of the smaller districts are POOR districts, and some of you want to just pluck 60 million out of thin air to justify your consolidation diatribe. Have any of you looked at the current tax bases, employment % for residents in the stated districts? This area is NOT Allegheny or Dauphin counties, people. Dreamers.

fwiw in my scenario I wasn't concerned about the local revenue side of things. The state can reallocate revenue as needed. I was focused on overall cost reduction, centralization of high schools within districts, using current facilities, and mountains.

I don't think that it should be that difficult to compare total costs between Bellwood Antis + Tyrone as stand alone entities versus projected costs for 1 school district. Ditto for Juniata Valley and Huntingdon. Now splitting school districts would surely be a more complex calculation, but something that accountants should be able to do.

For any oldtimers out there, anybody know why the Meyersdale/Salisbury Elk Lick merger talks in the 80s didn't go anywhere?

From Bedford/Blair/Huntingdon perspective, I don't like the idea of countywide school districts at all. Population centers Saxton, Tyrone, and Mount Union (and a lesser extent Claysburg) are all located near county lines, creating some significant transportation issues if county lines separate districts.

[abpk2903]

The locations of future high schools is something for 30 years from now. Schools could cut a ton of money now with this scenario. Bedford county could still have it's high schools. For instance, what would it hurt if Ridge and Bedford merged their administration, athletics, and after school programs now? They could use the better of the 2 facilities for sports. That would cut down on half the coaching salaries, half the cost of officials, cost of equipment, operating expenses for facilities, and so on. Bedford has the better football, baseball, softball and wrestling facilities. Use Ridge for basketball, soccer, track, and tennis. I just don't get why people are so against starting the process. You don't have to go out buy ground and build a new school to begin to cut expenses.

Same scenario for the other side if the state. Use NBC for football, track, and wrestling. Use Tussey for soccer, tennis, and basketball. Use Everett for baseball and softball. The only difference is you are cutting those expenses in thirds rather than half. These schools would be large enough they could compete locally with each other, Hollidaysburg, Altoona, Johnstown, and State College. Hopefully other counties would follow suit.

[odoyelrules]

As far as admin mergers, I don't see that happening without the academics going also.

As far as athletics and after school programs, some drawbacks that you didn't mention:

1/2 the revenue from events also
increased travel costs going back and forth between the 2 schools all the time
increased dealing with winter weather and all of its issues
significant decrease in participation by students from the visiting schools

Additionally I think that athletic/after school programs costs are minimal anyway as far as what $ the school puts into them.

With that said, I'm relatively neutral on the nonacademic merger topic, I would probably continue with status quo when participation rates are high but encourage coops when participation rates at schools drop.

[abpk2903]

But what a athletic and administrative merger does create without expense is a structure for an eventual complete merger. If you are already sharing a football team and administration, building that high school in Cessna in 20 years isn't as much of a culture shock to the students. You won't necessarily lose half the gate. If you live in Bedford and are going to Bison games you will probably continue to go. If you live in fishertown and go to Lions games you will probably still venture into Bedford and watch the game. Will you lose some, yes. But if you are a high school football fan, you are still going to go. The gates will be bigger.

[El-Moldo]

Mergers often LOSE participation in athletic programs. For example, let's say Bedford and CR each have 40 kids on their football team rosters right now. If they merge, would they have 80 kids on their roster???? I think not. A merger would eliminate many kids from going out for football. Sure the quality of play would be better, which might be good for fans, but pleasing fans is the LAST reason for merging. Basketball, volleyball, baseball would be even worse, since not as may kids are needed for a team. I think there would be a general decline in sports participation from the student body. Is this what we want?

[deepcreek]

You sure about that? When Monaca and Center merged to form Central Valley the numbers went up not down. How does State College keep 105 players on its roster. It all has to do with getting kids to believe that being part of the program is special. I am sure Bedford and CR kids with the right coach would be excited about the opportunity to tackle larger schools. Just my opinion.