Debate Over Whether to Keep KO Schools Open Ends with ‘Yes’

Nearly every audience seat was filled at Wednesday’s meeting, when the board voted against a previous decision to close and Myrtle elementary schools and consolidate the schools’ programs.

Board members Gary Alward, Raeann Lindsey, Dan Domalik, Joeseph Finucan, Lisa Cancelliere, Dave Hommrich voted to revoke . By revoking the board’s Sept. 8 vote, the two schools will stay open.

Board members Thomas Nee, Marian Randazzo and Robert Brownlee voted against revoking the board’s earlier action.

Nee said that when the board began discussing the possibility of closing schools about three years ago, they had several reasons for doing so. He cited financial concerns over changes to teacher pension requirements and state funding, as well as the district’s shrinking enrollment.

“The main function of the school board in the state of Pennsylvania is to oversee the financial situation of the school district,” he said. “That’s all we were trying to do.”

The board came up with a plan to take the number of schools in the district from five to three, Nee said. He said it was sound educationally, and also financially responsible.

“I just want to inform the board that to keep five schools open, that’s our prerogative,” Nee said. “But some other problems can come out of this.”

He said class sizes, teacher layoffs or school curriculum could be affected in the future, and that he doesn’t want to see cuts to programs, including music, art and athletics.

“As far as this problem is concerned, it’s not over with tonight’s vote,” Nee said. “We kicking it down the road. It’s going to come up again, and again, and again.”

Board member Dan Domalik, and was sworn in Wednesday evening, responded to Nee.

After years commenting on the topic as either a parent or a school board candidate, Domalik said, he wanted a chance to comment as a school board member before casting a vote.

Domalik said he’d collected two binders of information about school consolidation, much of which he said he’d shared with the board and the public.

“Schools are not factories,” he said. “You can’t consolidate them like you can an assembly line and expect to get a more efficient situation.”

Although some had been accused of supporting one decision or another with emotion, Domalik said, he—a self-professed "numbers geek" who works as a structural engineer—tried to keep pure emotion out of the equation and had always kept an open mind. 

 “I’ll continue to do that in the future,” he said. “If this topic would come up again, I’m never going to be adamant that this is not something we’re talking about. But small neighborhood schools are critical to this district’s success. It’s what we know works in this district.”

Smaller schools have fewer discipline problems, better educational outcomes, close gaps in income brackets and give students a better chance to participate in extracurricular activities, he said.

“I don’t see why we would try to fix something that is so clearly not broken,” Domalik said. “If we had problems—and we do—we need to address those problems. I don’t want to pile more problems on top of those problems by creating a whole different school district that doesn’t look anything like today’s.”

Before board members voted on the action, audience members who spoke during the public comment period said they were happy just to see the item on the meeting agenda.

“I was happy to see on the agenda tonight that the decision to close Aiken and Myrtle elementaries will be rightfully recanted,” said Gina Dedig of Green Tree. “Those schools are quite successful academically and it would be a shame to do away with two of the district’s gems.”

Patricia Conlon, also of Green Tree, said two of her children attend Aiken—which was awarded Blue Ribbon status earlier this year—and that she also supported keeping the schools open.

“I feel that this is why so many residents and voters across the district went out Nov. 6 and elected members to the school board, to avoid that travesty from happening,” Conlon said.