Board President: Spring City Elementary is Not Closing

Spring-Ford Area School District board president Joseph Ciresi made it very clear to the public that the district has no plans of shutting down at Monday night's workshop meeting. The board met at the high school cafeteria for the first time since its summer break began at the end of June.

"Spring City is not closing," Ciresi said at the meeting. "This is a rumor. Spring-Ford doesn't work behind closed doors. I am sick and tired of people pushing this rumor around and it's getting to a point where it's hurtful."

Ciresi further indicated it would take more than a year to close the school down and that the board would have lengthy public discussions before making that decision. He hoped to finally squash the rumors going around town once and for all.

New Superintendent Dr. David Goodin also spoke about Spring City Elementary earlier in the meeting in his superintendent's report. In his report, Goodin said he has spend his first six weeks on the job talking to many people within the district and board and simply getting advice, while also learning the "day-to-day fires" that go on district-wide.

"When I talk about day-to-day fires and things coming up, you have to deal with issues, whether it be with parents, curricular issues, special education," said Goodin. "One of the things I’ve been trying to monitor here is keeping track of the enrollment at Spring City Elementary."

In a couple of grades, the school only has one teacher, so Goodin has had to monitor that very closely. For example, in one second grade class there are 28 confirmed second graders out of Spring City. There were three more in the process for registration, but Goodin put a cap at 28 and assigned those three to another school.

"I’m trying to keep a tab on that and watch that and be able to give a board recommendation on how to address it," Goodin said. "One thing is that we can offer some slots in other elementary schools. That would probably not be the best recommendation because then what you do is you send students from one sending area to another school and it exacerbates because the next year, it might be a bigger class."

As the board watches this go through, Goodin said he thinks he may be more inclined to recommend sliding an aid in there to help out this year.

"Once we go in next year, then you have two teacher and that problem kind of mitigates itself," said Goodin. "I’m trying to monitor these things and that’s an example of what I’m trying to deal with."