Boyertown Board Votes to Begin Closing Pine Forge

Photos by Evan Brandt

A panoramic view of the crowd at the start of the May 14 Boyertown School Board meeting.

With a 5-4 vote, the Boyertown Area School Board Tuesday night kicked off the process for closing Pine Forge Elementary School.

Voting just one week before the primary election, the members voting in favor of the closure were David Lewis, Donna Usavage, Jill Dennin, Rodney Boyer and School Board President Steve Elsier.

Voting in opposition were Ruth Dierolf, Clay Breece, School Board Vice President Brandon Foose

With enrollment of about 242 in December, Pine Forge is one of
Boyertown's smallest school buildings.

and Christine Neiman.

As solicitor Jeff Sultanik explained in some detail, Tuesday's vote is not a final decision, but only begins the process for gathering more information for a full public hearing required by the state; as well as approvals by the Berks County Planning Commission and Douglass (Berks) Township Planning Commission.

But at least four speakers Tuesday night did not need a formal public hearing to explain their thoughts on the subject.

"Closing Pine forge will create student over-crowding which will become a district-wide issue, not just an isolated issue in one or two schools." said Jen Irey. She said it will lead to larger class sizes, which will lead to less individualized attention for the students.

Here is some video of her comments:



"What is disheartening to me, is that after sitting through all these meetings, I still have not heard any of the long-term plans laid out," said Krista Gross, a parent of three children in the district.

"I would like to know what the district plans to do if their assumptions are wrong; what their back-up plan is if the district grows faster than they anticipate" said Gross. "Will our children end up in modular classrooms again?"

Here is more video of her comments:



Ellen Martignetti said some of the Pine Forge staff is already moving on to other jobs, "instead of waiting to be re-assigned by the district. Came you blame them? Isn't that what all of you would do?"

"Imagine what that looks like to a child. It looks frightening." Martignetti said. "Imagine a building full of unfamiliar faces."

Here is video of more of her comments:

Resident Jon Emeigh said his comments would not be popular.

"I don't know if everyone realizes how dire our financial situation is. It's really bad," said Jon Emeigh. "And we have only a choice of bad decisions"

"If we vote to keep Pine Forge open, it's going to cost about $8 million, spread out. Over the course of 30 years, it will cost about $16 million," Emeigh said.

"So the trade off for you keeping your school, is probably not being able to spend more on counselors; potentially not upgrading other schools and potentially threatening programs."

Nevertheless, he said, he would not support closing the school without more details on what would happen next.

Here is more video of Emeigh's comments:



But Boyertown Superintendent Dana Bedden said that if the administration went to the extra step of putting together those plans, the public would argue that the board's mind was already made up before the vote.

"Tonight's decision is not a closing decision," said Sultanik, noting state law requires a public hearing with full details a full three months before the final vote is taken.

In fact, two of the "yes" votes, Boyer and Dennin, said they voted yes in part to move the process forward so that those very questions can be answered.

Supporters of keeping Pine Forge open, wore red.

"If the data changes, I'm willing to change my mind," said Dennin.

But Neiman doubted that. "Once we start having hearings, it's going to be a done deal," she said.

She said Pine Forge students will most likely be sent to Earl, Boyertown and Colebrookdale elementary schools and will be "on the bus for an hour."

Dierolf agreed that the school district "is in financial crisis, but we're building a new stadium."

Lewis said closing the school will save the district $4 to $5 million, but Dierolf said she does not see those savings being realized.

"Cosing a school to close a budget shortfall is wrong," said Breece. "This will not raise academic outcomes for our kids," said Breece. He also predicted that in a few years, it will be decided that a new elementary school is needed "five or six miles to the east."

Pine Forge Elementary School was first constructed in 1928 as

Douglass Township Grade School. It was upgraded in 1957 and 1987
and is located on eight acres.

He was perhaps referring to the fact that enrollment growth driving re-districting is coming primarily from the Montgomery County side of the 100-square-mile district, in Douglass (Mont.) and New Hanover townships, where hundreds of new housing units are planned or already approved.

But Bedden insisted the one thing "not on the table is a new elementary school. That will cost as much as $26 million, and that is money we don't have," he said.

According to the district study, last year it costs $2.7 million to operate Pine Forge Elementary.  It would cost between $1.8 to $4 million to upgrade the building to be compatible with the other elementary schools.

Pine Forge has about 17 teachers and 18 other staff. The administration does not call for any lay-offs as a result of closing the school. Personnel savings would come from attrition, retirements and resignations.

Donna Usavage said the studies have shown there is enough room in the other school buildings and closing Pine Forge "is in the best interests of the entire school district."

After voting, the school board went into a executive session, closed

to the public, for more than an hour, which did a good job of 

clearing out the audience from the meeting.

But the question of whether there is enough room in Boyertown's school buildings is exactly what is driving the re-districting plan which was adopted unanimously prior to the Pine Forge vote.

In the first vote, the board voted unanimously to begin the process of re-districting, which will change which school hundreds of students attend among Boyertown's seven elementary schools and two middle schools.

After the meeting Elsier explained that the re-districitng plan, or "rightsizing" as Bedden has labeled it, can be found on the district website and affects all school buildings but the high school.

According to that information, last updated on May 5, Boyertown's school buildings have the following capacities and enrollments as of December:

• Boyertown Elementary: Capacity of 700 with 445 students, or 64 percent of capacity.
• Colebrookdale Elementary: Capacity of 350 with 291 students, or 83 percent of capacity.
• Earl Elementary: Capacity of 350 with 246 students, or 70 percent capacity.
• Gilbertsville Elementary: Capacity of 700 with 689 students, or 98 percent of capacity.
• New Hanover/Upper Frederick Elementary: Capacity of 700 with 675 students, or 96 percent of capacity.
• Pine Forge Elementary: Capacity of 350 with 242 students, or 69 percent of capacity.
• Washington Elementary: Capacity of 700 with 483 students, or 69 percent of capacity.
• Middle School East: Capacity of 1,050 with 895 students, or 85 percent of capacity.
• Middle School West: Capacity of 860 with 782 students, or 91 percent of capacity.

Elsier conceded that should the board ultimately vote to close Pine Forge Elementary, that the plan will have to be adjusted to put those 242 students in other buildings.

In other news, after coming out of an hour-long executive session, from which the public was excluded, the school board voted 7-2 to adopt a $121 million preliminary budget that, if unchanged by June, will raise taxes by 3.6 percent.

Now, here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Closing Pine Forge Elementary School