Revised Hempfield middle school redistricting plan approved

Hempfield Area School District now has a final answer to where students will attend middle school next year, after approving a revised plan for redistricting.

The plan defines where students will go to school in the wake of a February vote to condense the district’s three middle schools into two and use Harrold Middle School for ninth graders in the fall during a $128 million revitalization project at the high school. Built in 1921, Harrold is the oldest school in the district.

The redistricting vote was tabled at an April 24 meeting in order to gather further information about the decision. A previously-approved proposal had laid out a different allocation of students, but was revised after some parents responded to a survey requesting their students stay at their current school.

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. The newly approved proposal assigns those students to West Hempfield Middle School, with Fort Allen children being assigned to Wendover, according to Superintendent Tammy Wolicki.

At the board meeting Monday, board members approved the new plan unanimously.

During a presentation on the plan, Wolicki described the new predicted class sizes and makeup of students at the schools.

West Hempfield Middle currently has 397 students, and Wendover Middle has 430 students. Harrold Middle has 368 students. The new plan puts West Hempfield Middle at 574 students and Wendover at 607 for next year.

Currently, at Wendover, the average class size is 25.8 students. West Hempfield has an average of 23.9 students and Harrold has a 24.6 student average. With the new plan, Wendover will have an average of 25.3 students per class and West Hempfield will have 23.7 students, based on projected enrollment figures.

Parent perspective

Parents spoke up at the meeting to express ongoing concerns about the redistricting process.

Jennifer Mirt, a parent, said she was concerned about class sizes, and asked why some parents were given the chance to vote on their middle school assignment and not others.

“All of a sudden, because they chose West Hempfield, a whole slew of people who were from Fort Allen are now being pulled apart, when they were initially told that they were going to be staying and the whole school was going to be transferring,” she said. “I know kids are resilient, and maybe as a parent I’m more concerned about that, but it affects them emotionally as well. Just really think about those things.”

Sophia Stoner, a seventh grader at Harrold Middle School who lives in the Fort Allen neighborhood, said the proposed division would split her up from her childhood friends who live in other neighborhoods.

“I understand that it is only one year, but they are my lunch table, my group when we hang out, the people who help me when I need motivation, and the girls that I spent so much of my middle school time with” she said “Whatever you vote tonight will affect the kids of Fort Allen Elementary and the kids of Stanwood Elementary. I know that this is not an easy decision, and I ask that you take a look at all the numbers, the number of kids affected, and the percentage of kids in each school.”

Todd Slavin, who is running for Hempfield Area School Board, said he was not satisfied with the amount of information that parents have received about the decision-making process. He asked whether students would be stuck waiting for the bus at the school for longer times than the time allocated for their bus trips.

“I’m hoping you guys have all the information, and you’ve been explained it very well, better than what we have been receiving,” he said to the board. “I just hope that if you guys are voting for this one tonight, that you have all the information and it’s not going to have to get changed again before the school year.”