Penns Valley’s board voted to close this school immediately. What happens next?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Penns Valley’s school board voted to close Miles Township before the 2025-26 school year.
- Students and staff will shift to nearby schools, as the district plans to retain affected employees.
- The district has not determined the fate of the Miles Township Elementary School building.
Following months of debate and community outreach, the Penns Valley Area School District finalized plans to officially close an elementary school facing dwindling enrollment.
The district’s school board voted Tuesday to approve plans that will shutter the Miles Township Elementary School effective immediately. The school’s official closure date arrives two weeks before the first day of the 2025-26 school year.
Board members voted 8-1 in favor of closing the school and later considered approving one of two potential closure dates: Aug. 12, 2025, or June 30, 2026. The board voted 7-2 in favor of closing the school immediately, with its two dissenting members — Kimberly Domin and Daniel Hall — arguing a delayed closure would have provided Miles Township Elementary students, families and staff with a more graceful farewell to their building and community.
According to plans previously presented to the community, Penns Valley’s district will retain all current Miles Township Elementary staff following its closure. The district has not yet developed public plans regarding the fate of the school building, but said the topic will be an item for consideration at future board meetings.
Miles Township Elementary’s students will move to either Penns Valley Elementary and Intermediate School or Centre Hall-Potter Elementary School this fall. The district has already developed plans to spread previous Miles Township Elementary students across the other elementary schools, which are thought to have plenty of room to accommodate more students, according to plans presented to the public at a town hall in May.
Penns Valley’s school board approved the closure of Miles Township Elementary following months of outreach initiatives seeking community input and questions at local township meetings, fire company meetings, open sessions at area churches and other public settings. Community members were also able to submit comments to the district through a direct email address.
Some community members criticized Penns Valley’s district for moving to potentially close the school just under two weeks before the first day of school. Just one person spoke during public comment before Tuesday’s vote.
“I’m not against closing the school,” district parent Scott Martz said. “The numbers don’t lie. My problem is how you’re going to [close it] and the timing of it.”
“I say let it open for one more year. Go one more year,” Martz continued. “Let these students go there for one more year, and let these teachers teach there for one more year. Let the community have one more year of this building and this school and make it a celebration year.”
Domin, the lone board member to vote against closing Miles Township Elementary, strongly condemned plans to consider its closure when they were first made public back in April. She again opposed plans to close the school at Tuesday’s special voting meeting, where she criticized what she considered to be an abrupt decision-making process that left key stakeholders on the sidelines until it was too late.
“In April, when this was formally put in motion, I expressed this abrupt approach was unfair to our teachers, our staff, our parents and, most importantly, our students,” Domin said before voting. “The staff and students deserve time to prepare for such a transition, yet they were not given such courtesy. I find it difficult to understand how any school board member or administrator could support the manner in which this process was handled.”
“The people most affected should never be the last ones heard,” Domin added.
Why close Miles Township Elementary?
Penns Valley administrators held a public hearing in May that highlighted several challenges Miles Township Elementary faces, including declining enrollment rates and some logistical issues for the decades-old school. That hearing, held at Penns Valley Junior-Senior High School, effectively started a 90-day countdown before the district’s school board could vote on and potentially approve a permanent school closure.
Penns Valley schools have seen their collective enrollment dip by about 10.8% since the 2010-11 school year, administrators reported in May. Miles Township Elementary has instructed roughly 100 students each year since the start of that period, though the steady rate is largely a product of district efforts to shuffle students between other schools.
In April, Penns Valley’s school board approved measures to send Miles Township Elementary’s incoming kindergarten and third-grade students to either Penns Valley Elementary and Intermediate School or Centre Hall-Potter Elementary School for the 2025-26 school year. Miles Township Elementary’s nine-student 2024-25 kindergarten class moved to Penns Valley Elementary and would have remained there for first grade this fall even if the school didn’t close.
If it had continued operating, Miles Township Elementary would have instructed only Pre-K, second- and fourth-grade students for the 2025-26 academic year.
Moving Miles Township Elementary students to other schools will require some reassignments, the district said. Penns Valley will eliminate one section of third-grade instruction starting with the 2025-26 school year and “consider best-fit replacements for grade-level teams” when changing assignments for teachers and staff.
District administrators estimated Miles Township Elementary’s operations — including utilities, repairs and general maintenance — cost between about $70,000 and $80,000 each year. Closing the school is not expected to save the district much money, Superintendent Brian Griffith said in May, though it will avoid end-of-life capital improvement costs that were expected to cost more than $700,000 over the next few years.
The building was last renovated ahead of the 2004-05 school year but remains in good physical condition, administrators said.
Administrators and board members said closing Miles Township Elementary would help the district reduce resource-sharing between buildings, allowing schools to provide more consistent support for students.
Even before its closure, Miles Township Elementary was already operating in partnership with other district schools to provide key services and support for students and staff, administrators said at May’s public hearing. The district’s elementary schools shared itinerant instructors and some specialized service workers, including counselors, social workers, nurses and speech and language specialists. Katie Bish even served as the principal for both Miles Township Elementary and Centre Hall-Potter Elementary.
Early plans presented in May indicated closing Miles Township Elementary would not significantly increase the longest ride times for students taking the bus to and from school. It required an estimated 51 minutes for students in Aaronsburg to reach Miles Township Elementary by bus, but the longest bus route by time will jump to about 53 minutes for students riding from Livonia to Penns Valley Elementary and Intermediate School following Miles Township Elementary’s closure.
What happens next?
Penns Valley’s district laid the groundwork for Miles Township Elementary’s potential closure at May’s public town hall. There, administrators said they would develop transition plans for students, faculty and staff and share moving plans with custodial workers. The district also said it would send official transportation notifications to students whose bus routes will change and create meet-and-greet and orientation opportunities for families whose students are changing schools.
Once Penns Valley shuffles Miles Township Elementary students and staff to their new homes, the district must determine the future of its former elementary school. The timeline for such a decision is unclear, but the board will not convene for another regular voting meeting until Sept. 17.
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