HASD study considers building closures
HOLLIDAYSBURG — Members of the Hollidaysburg Area School Board heard the findings of a feasibility study on ways to stem increasing financial challenges across the district during a Monday night meeting.
Several of the options in the study included closing a number of the district's elementary schools and condensing their student populations into a single, new building on the district campus, as well as renovations to move ninth graders into the high school building.
Representatives from the Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates architecture firm presented the districtwide study during a Physical Plant Committee Meeting.
The updated study of the version conducted in 2022 was requested due to the district's current financial situation, according to CRA representative Scott Cousin.
Hollidaysburg currently has a $2,574,974 budget deficit and several expensive building maintenance projects anticipated in the next few years, including a senior high roof repair and new junior high boiler, according to a Mirror report in August.
The study tracked average student enrollment across grade levels going back 15 years and projected estimated enrollment until the 2032-33 school year.
According to the study, which included data from several different Pennsylvania Department of Education estimates, the district will have less than 3,000 total students by 2029-30, which is down from the nearly 3,500 students in 2010-11.
Four of the PDE estimates showed a steady decline in enrollment in the next nine years, while only one showed a mostly unchanged total according to the study.
PDE recommends that every school district in the commonwealth should have the capacity to hold more students than current enrollment to ensure efficient building use, so any seats above this threshold are unnecessary.
And with HASD's projected decline in enrollment, the district will have hundreds of seats past this recommended level.
According to the study, the district will have approximately 675 empty seats at the elementary level, 335 at the junior high level and 240 seats at the senior high level.
The masterplan recommended in the CRA study listed four main steps to stabilize the district's long-term financial health — moving sixth grade into the junior high building, ninth grade into the senior high, consolidating one or more of the three elementary schools and renovations on current buildings.
Moving ninth graders into the high school would require a two-story addition to the current building in order to rehome all students, while sixth graders would be able to move into the junior high building without any major renovations.
The consolidation process outlined in the study could take three routes — consolidating all three elementary schools into one, newly constructed building where C.W. Longer stands; consolidating Foot of Ten and Frankstown Elementaries into a new building and a renovated C.W. Longer; or consolidating all three elementaries into the junior high building and constructing a new junior high.
According to Cousin, the anticipated cost of enacting the necessary renovations on the current district buildings to maintain their functionality in the same time frame would likely be more expensive than some form of consolidation due to the scope of the repair projects.
Cousin also said that the district could save more than $1.6 million in annual operating and utility costs in a newly built, consolidated elementary school due to improved efficiency in building maintenance and staff.
This plan did not include layoffs, but instead would account for the decreased staff requirement due to attrition over time, where positions left by retired staff would be left unfilled.
According to Superintendent Curtis Whitesel, it will be between six and 12 months till the board takes any action on the proposed master plan and the board would welcome public feedback before any final vote is taken.
"(School administrators and the board) will continue to meet and we will try to come up with the best few options, then at that point we would bring the community in and have a community discussion and community input," Whitesel said.
The district will seek feedback once they have thoroughly assessed the CRA study and discussed the masterplan internally. Whitesel added that Hollidaysburg leaders are trying to be as fiscally responsible as possible during this process, while "doing what's best for our community and our students."
"We are very, very early in the planning stages, so to get a bunch of people involved right now would not be productive," he said. "Eventually, something needs to be done so we are going to start that planning period now."
Mirror Staff Writer Conner Goetz is at 814-946-7535.
