Decision on Hempfield middle school redistricting postponed until May

Parents of Hempfield Area middle school students will have to wait a little longer to get concrete answers on where their students will attend classes next year, as the school board postponed its vote this week on an updated redistricting plan until May 8.

Under the first proposal approved in March, students from neighborhoods of Youngwood, Edgewood Manor and Timber Ridge Court were expected to move to Wendover Middle School. A new proposal assigns those students to West Hempfield Middle School, with Fort Allen children being assigned to Wendover, according to Superintendent Tammy Wolicki.

School directors voted in February to condense the district’s three middle schools into two because of a $128 million revitalization project at the high school.

Built in 1921, Harrold Middle School is Hempfield Area’s oldest school. Ninth graders will attend classes there this fall.

Late-game change

The latest updates were proposed April 18 in response to results of a parent survey in the three neighborhoods.

According to Wolicki, 27 out of 30 parents requested their students remain at West Hempfield Middle, which would have thrown off the class sizes at the school.

Under the new plan, Wendover and West Hempfield Middle School attendance areas would remain as they are now, with additions of Harrold’s attendance area. Only students from Harrold would be moved.

Part of the confusion was that Youngwood students were not included in the original plan to move to Wendover, Wolicki said. She apologized that the plan had to be revised.

“Determining a boundary is a very complex process, and I share that not as an excuse,” she said. “It was an error in the communication that was shared, in that Youngwood was not originally stated to be included in the Wendover count rather than West Hempfield Middle.”

Wolicki said the district’s goals were to come up with a division that would balance enrollment, provide bus routes under 50 minutes and keep children from the same neighborhood together.

“We understand that this does impact children,” she said. “There are children who currently attend elementary schools, and then (are) looking at attending a middle school other than with their elementary peers. I understand for parents, there is a challenge whenever there are carpool arrangements with neighbors.”

Board opinions

School board members made a motion to vote on the plan Monday night but unanimously decided to table it so the information can be clarified.

Wolicki said the middle school parent orientations, scheduled for the beginning of May, might be rescheduled for later in the month.

“Personally, as a board member, I think for the community, we need more clarification as to who exactly is going where, and bus times and things like that,” board member Michael Alfery said. “I’m just concerned that we didn’t give a very clear message about exactly how it is going to happen. … I understand we are under the gun here, but I personally would prefer more clarity.”

Alfery said the online map for parents to find their students’ middle school assignments was difficult to use and needed to be perfected.

Board member Vince DeAugustine described the board’s original moves as “botched.”

“I think we worked on this for a few months, if not longer, and we came back with some information that we voted on that we thought was good information, and it ended up not being good information,” he said.

Parent frustration

At the meeting, parents expressed concern that changes were happening so late in the game and that Fort Allen residents were not given a chance to choose what school their children would attend.

School board candidate Todd Slavin said that last year, parents asked the district to start surveys and redistricting early to avoid a last-minute scramble.

“We’re now under 30 days from the end of the school year, and we’re having changes still made?” he said. “We asked you to do this so we would not run into these problems.”

Slavin said his daughter, who lives in Fort Allen, would be separated from a lot of her friends by the new move.

“Dr. Wolicki, you said that neighborhoods wouldn’t be split up. You stated from the get-go that Fort Allen Elementary School would stay with their elementary school and go to West Hempfield. This is not the case,” he said. “After you guys vote tonight, are we going to get a survey tomorrow giving us a choice?”

School board candidate Erin Speese said she was more concerned about overcrowding and class sizes.

“I hope that the new plan is ironclad and that you’ve got concrete answers to the questions we’ve been posing since last fall,” Speese said. “I would hate to be here again a month from now addressing yet another major revision to the consolidation plan.”

School board candidate Lindsay Stevens raised concerns that the district’s communication about the changes was not ideal, and that the Google Earth map provided by the district was difficult to use.

“I am suggesting again that you delay approving this so that it doesn’t change again when you realize the busing is not going to work,” Stevens said. “We have put a lot of time and effort into researching this for ourselves and for our children, and we expect you to put the same amount of time and effort in.”