Greene County Goes Back to School
?It’s that time of year again when county youths pack away their swim suits and sun block and start opening their school books. Monday, August 29 marks the official opening day for county schools, and this year the state budget cuts seems to be one of school administrators top concerns.
Each year, the Messenger puts together “Back to School” editions that give parents and students an idea of some of the changes that are taking place in the upcoming school year. This week, we’re focusing on what’s new at Central Greene and Carmichaels Area School Districts. Next week, the focus will be on the Southeastern Greene, Jefferson-Morgan and West Greene School Districts.
One big change at the Central Greene School District has been the closing of Perry Elementary School in Mt. Morris. On Tuesday, Aug. 9, the Central Greene School Board voted 7 to 0 to close the school. As a result of the decision, about 120 students from Perry Elementary will now be making a daily commute to classes at Waynesburg Central Elementary School in Franklin Township.
School superintendent Dr. Jerome Bartley attributes the closing to two factors — declining school enrollment and budget concerns.
“Over the past eight years, we saw a 400-student decrease in enrollment district wide,” he said. “In that same time period, the number of elementary school students in the district declined by 177 students.
As to the budget, the district is operating with a loss of $2.3 million due primarily to cuts in education by the state.”
To acclimate the Mt. Morris students to their new environment, school guidance counselors organized a pen pal program this summer by which students from the Mt. Morris school could exchange information with their fellow students already attending the Waynesburg school. This past week, administrators also scheduled an orientation program for all elementary school students to help them adjust to their new environment and get acquainted with one another.
As an aid to both students and parents, helpful information was posted to the school’s website www.cgsd.org/elementary advising on such matters as how elementary students could get acquainted with their pen pals and what parents could do to help ease their children’s potential anxiety over going to a new school.
Once the school year starts, a buddy system will attempt to make the integration of the two schools happen as smoothly as possible by having Waynesburg elementary students show their Mt. Morris peers around the building.
The biggest change this year at Central Greene is the establishment of a Central Greene School District e-Learning Academy with goals of drop-out prevention, credit recoupment, online summer school classes and the ability to present some courses not normally offered. Under the oversight of Technology Coordinator Matt Blair, the Academy hopes to bring back to the district school students now involved with alternate cyber schools.
For high school students, the district’s College and Career Readiness program will help students prepare for life after graduating, and the Study Island Benchmarking Program will give administrators an idea of how students are progressing, especially in the areas of reading and math.
The district’s newly initiated School Messenger, a one phone call service, will inform parents of all school delays, cancellations, emergencies and special events, and at the elementary level, the new grade-quick, grade book will list grades in an electronic format.
“This year, we’re operating with a $2.3 million budget deficit,” said Dr. Bartley.
“We were fortunate in that we had nine individual retirees, five of which we did not replace. We also realigned our staff so that we wouldn’t lose any existing programs, took cost cutting initiatives on supplies, froze professional development programs for staff and tapped into our fund balance from previous years.
Overall, we are very fortunate in that we didn’t have to cut any programs.”
At the Carmichaels Area School District, a new greenhouse is currently under construction for use by the science department.
“So far, the excavation and cement work have been completed, and we expect the greenhouse will be completed by early fall in the rear of the junior high school building,” said Craig Baily, superintendent.
Under the guidance of science teacher, Kevin Willis, students will learn how to grow plants and other vegetation in the greenhouse, made possible through a $40,000 grant from the Greene County Community Foundation and another $5,000 from Alpha Resources, a coal mining company.
“Students participating in this project will experience and learn from college level research techniques as well as real world, hands-on growing and plant propagation activities,” said Baily.
Earlier this year, two special needs instructors, Zoe Chambers and Dorothy Katusa, wrote a proposal to Lowe’s for a kitchen make-over to be installed in the school’s Multiple Disabilities Classroom. Lowe’s awarded the proposal, which will see the installation of new countertops, kitchen equipment and utensils sometime this fall. The new kitchen will be used to teach basic life skills to special needs students.
Regarding other changes in the school district, Baily said the administration is pleased to report that no programs are being cut this year, especially in light of the current state budget issues.
“Because of the difficult budgeting process for the upcoming school year, staff, administrators and the school board worked very diligently to assure that no programs would be cut,” said superintendent Baily. “As a result, there will be no loss in the students’ educational opportunities. We did make some changes in our purchasing procedures to allow activities like field trips to continue. We also got extra help from booster organizations to make sure these activities survive.”
The district cut $1.1 million from this year’s operating budget (roughly 15 percent), which the state would normally have paid. Rather than raise taxes, the district decided instead to rely on its fund balance (money left over from previous years) to make up the shortfall.
“While we didn’t add any new programs this year, we anticipate that, if the state comes up with a better funding program for education, we will add more advanced placement courses to the high school curriculum,” said Baily.
“Although budgeting has been an issue this year, the school board is committed to offering our students the best in textbooks and learning technology.”
Current student enrollment in the district is around 1,100 students, and elementary students in grades 3 through 6 will benefit this year by a new PSSA program.
Baily added that although high school physical education instructor Donald Williams retired, the district hired Ryan Krull as his replacement. He also feels positive about the school district’s sports teams in 2011-12.
“This year, our football team looks very strong, and we’re anticipating a successful year in all sports,” he said.