There is an April update to Warren County School District’s master facilities plan frequently asked questions page.

There are 13 new items in the update, regarding issues that were brought up before the school board or in public input sessions.

Among the issues addressed are population trends, using technology for delivering programs, and a comparison of the high school education breakdown in Warren County to other rural counties.

Warren County School District is not alone in seeing its enrollment dwindle.

Since 2020, the county has lost 2 percent of its population – the seventh highest rate in the state. Forest (5 percent), Clearfield (3.3 percent), and Cameron (2.8 percent) are counties in the region that have lost even more.

Clarion and Butler counties are the only ones in the region that have shown population growth.

The last few years have not been out of the ordinary for Warren County population and enrollment.

The district continues to see fewer students every year and has lost about 800 since 2012.

The FAQ includes information about rural school districts in the region and county-wide districts across the state.

Forest County’s high schools — two in one district — are even smaller than Warren’s, serving 54 and 82 students respectively, according to Pennsylvania Department of Education statistics for the 2020-2021 school year. Those schools are 29 miles apart.

The distance between Sheffield and Youngsville high schools is just over 20 miles. Warren Area High School is about 12 miles from Sheffield Area Middle High School and 11 from Youngsville Middle High School. Eisenhower Middle High School is 14 to 18 miles from YMHS and 11 from WAHS.

For the same year, Warren’s four high schools had 181, 264, 142 and 703 high school students in them.

This year, there are 198 (Youngsville), 251 (Eisenhower), 132 (Sheffield), and 692 (Warren) students in the district’s high schools — a total of 1,275 high school students.

To the southwest, Venango County has five school districts, each with one high school. Those high schools had enrollments of 552, 338, 582, 256, and 600, according to PDE. The Venango County population is higher by about 31 percent or 12,000 people than Warren’s.

Elk County, with a population about 20 percent lower than Warren’s, has three school districts, each with one high school. The enrollments were 231, 631, and 185.

Clarion County, with a population very similar to Warren County’s, includes seven districts and seven high schools, with enrollments from 162 to 320.

Cameron County had one school district with one high school serving 139 students and Sullivan County had one high school with a population of 170.

Clinton County — which is very close in population and geographic size to Warren County — has two high schools in its one district. Those schools are 28 miles apart and served 119 and 1,152 students respectively.

Juniata is another single-district county. It has two high schools, 13 miles apart, serving 285 and 534 students.

Mifflin County, with a population about 7,500 greater than Warren County’s, has one high school serving 1,113 students in grades 10 through 12.

COURSE OFFERINGS

Those addressing the school board have suggested technology could help deliver advanced courses that are not currently available at some of the district’s high schools.

That is certainly an option in some cases, but is not considered ideal for either most students nor most teachers, according to the FAQ.

“The district, over decades, has utilized many different technologies to provide options for students with scheduling difficulties, students needing credit recovery, students with needs to be at home, and students who want courses for enrichment,” Superintendent Amy Stewart wrote in the FAQ. “Some technologies have provided a synchronous environment where the teacher and students meet at the same time, together, on a specific schedule. Some technologies have provided an asynchronous environment where the teacher and student communicate, but are not meeting at the same time, together, on a specific schedule. Some technologies have allowed for both synchronous and asynchronous interactions.”

“The district can provide quality instruction via technology, but providing content and teaching with technology requires a specific skillset and provides children with a different experience than in-person learning,” Stewart said.

Another suggestion to provide advanced placement and other courses of interest to students that are not currently available to all, was to hold those classes at the Warren County Career Center.

According to Stewart, the district allows students at Eisenhower, Sheffield, and Youngsville high schools to ride the career center buses to the Warren campus and attend specialized classes that are offered at WAHS but not their own.