Solanco will also increase spending on technology education, giving high school students skills and experience they need to move directly to the workforce after they graduate.
Those plans include a computer-controlled lathe and milling machine, plasma cutter, shaper, and other equipment in its production classes. There will be a multi--media press, printers, a bookmaker, and other equipment for the graphics department, high-definition broadcast cameras and studio equipment for the media studies program, a laser engraver and 3-D printers for CADD studies, and other equipment. The first construction projects will be at the district's two middle schools. Both will get new entrances and several additional classrooms. "We need to eliminate the trailers at both schools," said Dr. Brian Bliss, superintendent of the Solanco School District. In addition to regular classrooms, the two schools will also get large group instructional rooms similar to the one built at the high school. Clermont Elementary School will also get a new entrance, with an alternate bid that adds two classrooms and a new gymnasium. The project at Swift and Clermont will cost about $6 million; the one at Smith about $4 million. Planning for the projects will begin this year. Construction should begin within the next two or three years. There will also be a pilot program at Smith to deal with the school's aging heating and air conditioning equipment. Smith is the only district school to have heating and air conditioning that are entirely dependent on electricity. While that makes temperature regulation more flexible, it is also more expensive. The equipment itself is original to the school, which opened in the early 1980s. "We're going to put in one or two new edpacks [the units that heat and air condition each room] on a trial basis and see how they work," Dr. Bliss said. The district's financial picture makes the construction and course options possible. "We are now debt-free," he said. "That gives us incredible flexibility and puts us in a very rare situation for a school district. … If we had pursued the original project, we would have had to borrow and that would have given us a substantial debt." Having paid off its last construction bonds in February, the district will now work on smaller building projects that can be either paid for in cash or funded by borrowing money for no longer than five years. "We still have needs that must be met," the superintendent said. "We can now do this with a very conservative construction program and a very conservative financial plan." Among the needs are providing more specialized areas to accommodate support programs such as emotional support, life skills, speech therapy, and reading skills. "And, we are committed to continuing to have reasonable class size," he said. "To do this, we need more flexibility in our buildings." Aiding that flexibility will be preliminary plans to add as many as eight classrooms to two of the district's elementary schools if new housing developments are built in Solanco. The proposal to expand Smith, in the works since 2007, fell victim to changing needs and new financial realities. It called for making Smith big enough to take all the district's middle school students, closing Swift, and using part of Swift's building to expand Clermont Elementary School. The buildings housing Clermont and Swift are attached to each other. Turning that plan into reality would have cost more than $60 million. Changing needs and financial realities sparked in part by the Great Recession made the original plan difficult to follow, Dr. Bliss said. "As we started getting cost estimates, the financial picture changed. That gave us pause," Dr. Bliss said. One of the changes came when Pennsylvania stopped paying a subsidy to school districts to help cover design and engineering costs of school construction projects. That money disappeared when the state abandoned the program during the recession. The state also stopped paying part of the district's cyber charter school reimbursement and the district knew it would have to pay more into the state-run pension program. Then the recovery from the recession moved more slowly than some experts anticipated. "Each time we were ready to move [forward with the Smith construction project], the financial foundation shifted. … Our hesitation proved to be prudent," Dr. Bliss said. "It would have been difficult for us if we had been in the middle of this project when the financial picture changed so dramatically. Our patience paid off." The process that spawned the Smith project began eight years ago. In 2007, the district commissioned a study to determine future needs. That work included demographic study to provide projected enrollment figures that are still accurate. "We are in our seventh year since we did the study," Dr. Bliss said. "We were predicted to have essentially stable enrollment and that's what it is. We now have 199 students fewer than predicted by our demographer. While he anticipated little, if any, growth, the state projected a growth in enrollment." That study provided eight options for the district. The final option was to double the size of Smith and close Swift, In the meantime, the district completed projects at Quarryville Elementary School and the high school. Those projects provided more classroom space, a new fitness room, and a large group instructional area. Comments are closed.
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