At the second of two community engagement and outreach meetings Friday at the Warren County School District central office, most of the visitors who spoke expressed reservations about the possible closing of Sheffield and Youngsville high schools.

The leaders were asked to present arguments for and against reconfiguration options before the school board.

There were about 40 people in attendance at the evening meeting and a similar number was reported for the afternoon meeting.

With respect to the “status quo” option — four high schools remaining open — one comment was “keeping a bunch of people happy.”

“Everybody has the same opinion as far as keeping their school in their community,” another visitor said.

On the other side, “Keeping all four open as they are currently is not a sustainable option.”

The district invited community leaders, municipal government officials, business leaders and entrepreneurs, and leaders of other agencies and entities to the Friday meetings.

The speakers at the community outreach meeting were not asked to identify themselves.

Jacqui Catrabone of Strategy Solutions asked for comments specific to each of several options on the table before the board. She first asked for positives, then negatives.

Most of the comments regarding options that resulted in high school closings were negative.

The reasons behind comments on both sides varied — from education-related issues to community job and tax rates. Some individuals cited anecdotal evidence. Some highlighted transportation numbers and demographic data. Some speculated.

POPULATION AND BUSINESS

Concerns regarding proposals to close the high schools at Sheffield and Youngsville included:

“The impact of losing our high school… it’s sad and scary to think about. There will be a lot more movement out of our community.”

“You start closing all these schools down, you’re going to lose people.”

“You’re going to lose these businesses and the farmers.”

“You take the 9 through 12, your downtown businesses in Youngsville won’t be able to make it. It’ll do at least one of them in.”

“This school is the heart of the town of Sheffield. We have plans to continue to grow our businesses, but … without our school, people will not want to move here.”

Some positives regarding those proposals were:

“There’s not a big crowd coming behind us. We have to be mindful of how we’re going to continue offering the best education.”

Under some options, people who move to the county and “want to go to Warren High School… no longer have to stay in the Warren attendance area.”

“Warren is a declining population. It’s going to take a lot of effort to reverse that. I think the two-high-school solution is the only way to accomplish that.”

TAXES

Some comments were tied to responsibility, rather than approval or condemnation of a particular option.

“If you continue to raise the taxes, I’m going to have people moving to the nursing homes because they can’t afford to keep their homes. Take a look at what you’re doing to the senior citizens that are the backbone of this country.”

“Older adults work on fixed incomes. They can’t afford to have their property taxes going up and up.”

EDUCATION

“If I wanted a better education, I’d do whatever it took.”

Some concerns with regard to education related to proposed closures:

“Small schools can provide a lot. Some people want small schools. Some people want big schools.”

“It’s easy to say they’re not getting access. (But, students have) access to Virtual Academy. These students that would be taking AP classes… they’ll make it happen.”

“We’re not disadvantaged. We are not lacking education. Our graduation rate — 98 percent.”

“Send them, you will lose them.”

The positives:

“Two strong schools… put our children and this community in a better position than four schools can do alone. Make the hard, but necessary change.”

“The best schools in this country are the large ones.”

“I taught at Eisenhower and had students crying because they couldn’t get the classes that they wanted.”

“What opportunities are we giving to our students? I couldn’t believe that trigonometry isn’t offered. By bringing a larger population of students together, there’s going to be more opportunity.”

“There will be more opportunities, educationally, more equal access. More opportunity for extracurricular activities.”

One visitor suggested a possible solution for the lack of advanced placement (AP) course offerings at some of the district’s schools without relying on virtual education technology.

“Warren County Career Center — we already bus kids. Why we couldn’t have specialty classes at the career center?”

“You could take 12 or 15 kids out of Youngsville, Sheffield, bus them to Warren High School, and spend half of their day there. Why can’t we implement this, almost overnight, with little expense?”

TEACHERS

One visitor said there was no sign that current teachers were “running for the hills” due to having to work at small high schools.

But, most who addressed the subject of teachers had positives for closing high schools:

“Getting teachers is very hard to do. If you don’t have teachers, you don’t have schools.”

“We can’t lose the teachers that we have. They’re not happy with how they’re treated. Teaching four and five preps… is awful. If you want to do a good job, it’s awful. You have to work all the time to make that happen.”

“What the teachers are going through breaks my heart. Creating less stress will help them be their best selves and help my child.”

K-12

Turning Youngsville High School into a K-12 center like the Eisenhower and Sheffield campuses received some support.

“As someone who went through this with Allegheny Valley, being an elementary student and being moved to the high school is a better opportunity. As an elementary student, it was exciting for us. We got to interact with the older kids.”

“Moving the two schools together could be beneficial. It would create more of a sense of community.”

“I teach every day in a K-12 building. It’s so neat to watch the faculties interact. We plan projects where our older students work with our younger students. We have that positive interaction throughout the day.”

Asked why the options were not presented with detailed information, including costs, associated with them, Board President Paul Mangione explained that the details will be prepared once more options are eliminated.

“A lot of people are wanting to get specific… transportation runs, bus costs, costs in general,” Mangione said. “The board is waiting until the options get whittled down a little more.”

According to data provided by the district, the graduation rates at the schools were: Eisenhower — 91.8 percent for 2020-2021 and 92.8 percent for 2021-2022; Sheffield — 87 percent for 2020-2021 and 90.9 percent for 2021-2022; Warren — 84.4 percent for 2020-2021 and 87.7 percent for 2021-2022; and Youngsville — 89.7 percent for 2020-2021 and 77.8 percent for 2021-2022.