The participation in the third public engagement session related to Warren County School District’s reconfiguration effort.

The meeting was held Monday night at the district central office with about 14 people in attendance and more than 30 more attending virtually. The goal of the meeting was to talk about the implementation of the reconfiguration plan approved by the board on Monday, June 12.

According to that decision, high school students from the district’s eastern attendance area will be bused to Warren Area High School each morning. There, they will attend three core classes – math, English language arts, and science. They will then get on a bus and return to Sheffield Area Middle High School to complete each day. The comments related to implementation were generally interested in pushing back the changes to the 2024-2025 school year.

A comment written by Stephanie Snell was read by Board President Paul Mangione.

“The current option feels very rushed,” Snell wrote. “What is the rush to get this implemented the coming school year? Give your students, parents, teachers… time to plan. I ask to halt the implementation for this for the coming school year.”

“Have you thought about postponing this until 2024?” Kelly Sullivan asked. “That way, when it rolls out, you guys are totally ready. Have you thought about doing that, rather than running into head-on?”

Board Member Athur Stewart address that line of questioning.

“We have been looking into the master facilities plan for several years,” he said. “We have prioritized it. COVID has hastened the crisis of the lack of certificated teachers and consequently the pressures the teachers are under… This is something that we would have been acting on two or three years ago. I made it one of my personal goals to achieve this master facilities plan before I leave the board. I would feel negligent…”

The reconfiguration “saves taxpayer dollars, helps the teachers through reducing preps, and helps us offer more classes,” he said. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if we didn’t get this solution under way.”

“For the most part, almost 50 percent of Sheffield is already coming to Warren in some way shape or form,” Mangione said. “Because that’s been ongoing for years now … these are roads that we’ve already been down. This teacher shortage is for real. If we had enough teachers… things could stay the same. We don’t have enough teachers… enough certified teachers.”

Superintendent Amy Stewart cleared up one question brought up in the meeting. An attendee asked if high school students would be able to take the core classes virtually from Sheffield Area Middle High School. The district has the technical capability, but staffing will not allow for that possibility.

“We are not staffed with any study halls or any high school staff,” Amy Stewart said.

“What about kids that only have one or two cores?” Sullivan asked.

“We can make multiple bus runs,” Stewart said. “We probably won’t go every period. We do have the option to go more than once during the school day.”

Amy Stewart said the district would be posting a frequently-asked-questions document to its website this week.