There are still six reconfiguration options before the school board.

In addition to three that would close buildings as high schools, one that would create the district’s third K-12 center, and the “no-change” option, the board could realign attendant areas.

There has been some discussion about realignment – the administration worked out what it would take to even out the attendances of the district’s four high schools.

“There were several ideas that were brought up,” Superintendent Amy Stewart said. “This was one of them – equal.”

Creating a situation where each high school has about 320 students would result in dramatic cuts into the central attendance areas.

On Monday, the board talked about some of the other versions of that idea. The option originally came from a public input session and several speakers have since said that ‘equal’ is not what they were requesting.

“The option that distributes the students equally to all the schools – that’s not what they were asking for originally,” Board President Paul Mangione said Monday.

Stewart said the administration has taken other looks at the proposal. The easy moves don’t involve many high school students.

“The area that is consistently talked about is east of the Glade Bridge and west of Clarendon,” she said. “There are four 9-to-12 students in that area that go to Warren.”

There are another 13 high school students that are picked up on Mohawk Avenue and six along Pleasant Drive beyond Box Lane that currently attend Warren Area High School.

“The last one that I’ve heard is Starbrick… there are 18 9-to-12 students that live in Starbrick,” Stewart said. “It totals 41.”

If all of those areas were removed from the central attendance area, there would be about 650 students remaining there. Depending on where the 41 were sent, there could be about 150 in the eastern attendance area – with the additions of Clarendon to Glade Bridge and Mohawk areas, and about 215 in the western attendance area with the additions of Starbrick and western Pleasant Drive. The changes would not impact the northern attendance area, leaving about 250 high school students there.

“No matter where we draw a line, somebody’s going to want a line somewhere different,” Stewart said.

SPLITTING THE DISTRICT

One option that is no longer before the board, but continues to receive attention, is splitting the district into four or five autonomous districts.

The option, suggested during the first public input session, was removed after District Solicitor Chris Byham said it would require action by the Pennsylvania legislature.

“Making your own district or seceding from Warren County School District… you’d have to get approval from the state to do that and it’s not likely to happen,” Board Member Marcy Morgan said Monday.

“Our avenue to get answers like that is through the Intermediate Unit,” Stewart said. “I did reach out through our IU director, he did reach out to PDE. It was not a welcomed (idea)… it’s exactly opposite of what the commonwealth is trying to do. They are trying to get the small districts to come together.”

Part of the rationale for moving to larger districts is addressing a shortage of education personnel.

Stewart said districts state-wide are “struggling to get all of the seats filled,” from teachers to superintendents.

“It would be an odd day when I didn’t have something in my inbox about the teacher shortage,” she said. “The very rural and urban schools are having more trouble than anyone else. The number of emergency certificates have exceeded the number of new certs in the state.”