BELLEFONTE AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT

Panel recommends school projects

Committee suggests new fourth, fifth-grade school, renovations

Ed Mahon

BELLEFONTE — A district-wide facilities committee is recommending that the Bellefonte Area School District build a new fourth and fifth grade intermediate school, renovate and create a small addition at Benner Elementary School, and renovate Pleasant Gap and Bellefonte elementary schools.

“The first and foremost thing is equality in all the facilities,” committee member Suzanne McBride told the board at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Hayes Large Architects facilitated the 14-member committee, half of whom had children in the district, which focused on elementary schools.

The committee said their proposal would address current and future overcrowding issues. The plan suggested leaving Marion Walker, last renovated in 2007, untouched for the foreseeable future.

“Building the intermediate school allows the space for Marion Walker without having to do anything to it,” said McBride, the mother of a high school student. “It’s a beautiful school. We really don’t want to change it.”

She said the proposal also allows the district to avoid redistricting, brings equality in schools, keeps the neighborhood kindergarten to third grade schools small and leaves space on-site for future building expansions.

Hayes Large estimates that the cost to implement all the recommendations would range from $41.8 million to $51 million.

Board President Robert Lumley- Sapanski said the board would begin touring the elementary schools within the next month, as the committee recommended, and would discuss what parts of the recommendations to follow at future meetings.

One question mark for the district is future enrollment.

The state Department of Education’s projections, which rely on birth rates, predict that the district will have 1,399 kindergarten to fifth grade students in the 2013-14 school year and 1,527 in 2017-18.

The committee’s report factored in the Department of Education projections, as well as the report of a consultant demographer who factored in planned and proposed land development. The committee’s report projected 1,479 kindergarten to fifth grade students in the 2013-14 school year and 1,655 in 2017-18.

“One thing that’s surprising is birth numbers seem to be the most accurate,” said Stone, who served on the district’s facility committee in the 1990s.

The committee also recommended that the district attempt to seek LEED silver certification, a nationally recognized standard that rates the environmental sustainability of a construction project.

Ed Mahon can be reached at 231-4619.