PV lets go of small schoolhouse

Miles Township to take possession of 171-year-old one-room structure

By Ed Mahon

SPRING MILLS — The Penns Valley Area school board approved an agreement that will turn over that region's last public one-room schoolhouse to Miles Township.

“We think it can be a win-win,” Superintendent Brian Griffith said after the board’s meeting Wednesday night.

While the community wins a chance to save the 171-year-old Gramley schoolhouse, the district wins lower insurance premiums.

The district’s insurer considers the wooden structure a fire hazard to Miles Township Elementary School, located about 12 feet away on Town Lane Road in Rebersburg.

Miles Township supervisors approved the memorandum of understanding earlier this month.

Under the agreement, the township agrees to pay the district $1 for the schoolhouse and takes responsibility for relocating, restoring and maintaining the structure. The schoolhouse would remain on district property, mostly likely within 100 feet of its current location. The facility will be available for public use, and the township can’t transfer the property to a third party without the district’s permission.

Vonnie Henninger, a Miles Township resident who attended the Gramley schoolhouse in the 1950s, is working to raise the about $30,000 needed to move the structure through private donations, grants and fundraisers.

The district is responsible for completing the necessary surveys and plans to secure the subdivision and sewage plan approvals. That’s estimated to cost between $5,000 and $15,000, according to Griffith. The district could be reimbursed for those expenses, depending on how much grant money and donations the project nets.

Community members started discussing ways to save the Gramley schoolhouse in the summer of 2007, when district officials were considering demolishing the building. Henninger originally hoped to have the building moved in time for Miles Township’s bicentennial celebration in July, but that now seems unlikely. She expects the national recession to make fundraising more difficult, as well.

“But we’re going to work at it,” she said. “It’s going to happen.”

Anyone interested in contributing to the project can contact Henninger at 349-8960 or eeh1@psu.edu.

Ed Mahon can be reached at 231-4619.