Northern Lehigh School District is getting positive feedback on a plan to move students to one campus.

On Monday, Emily Liuzza, project architect for Alloy5, discussed the feasibility study completed in October, a six-month process looking at the physical condition and capacity of the district’s buildings.

The common campus model is focused on getting all of the district’s building on one site, where currently three of the district’s four schools are located.

“From a reasoning standpoint, there’s improved educational opportunities, efficiency, and safety and security in condensing your campus that would really shine if one of your schools was not located remotely,” Liuzza said.

Liuzza said a three-step process is needed for the common campus model to be efficient and to accommodate all of its students at once without having awkward transitions or any temporary modules.

Moving students

Step one is an addition at Northern Lehigh Middle School that moves sixth grade out of Slatington Elementary and into the middle school.

“The nice thing about this option is you start building and when that is done you move students over, students don’t have to be relocated during construction or any sort of phasing issues like that,” Liuzza said. “So that is kind of any easy transition there.”

Step two is an addition at Slatington Elementary, which would make it K-5. The addition, bigger than the middle school addition, would happen in multiple phases.

Liuzza said the final step is that Peters Elementary comes offline.

“We don’t know what that looks like yet,” she said. “We just know that the common goal is that the one remotely located campus would come offline.”

She said the sequence would be once the middle school addition would be complete, the design process could start. Design time is about 12 to 14 months, construction time is about 12 to 18 months. Liuzza said Slatington Elementary would have a design time of about 18 to 24 months with a 24- to 28-month construction timeline.

Peters is not figured into the timeline since the district hasn’t decided what its use will be.

Liuzza said the district would be looking at about six to seven years depending on how it would pace out these projects.

Feedback

The administrators provided feedback Monday. Peters Elementary Principal James Schnyderite said he sees advantages to safety and security, and that the concept would lead to more flexibility and opportunity.

Slatington Elementary Principal Todd Breiner said he believes the plan is developmentally appropriate, would lend itself to increased educational opportunities, as well as the safety aspect.

Middle school Principal David Hauser also said he supports a common campus model.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Tania Stoker said she believes the concept would lead to more opportunity and flexibility.

The board also heard from its director of food services, athletic director, director of technology, director of special education, director of operations, and director of educational technology, curriculum and instruction, all of whom spoke favorably to the concept.

Superintendent Dr. Matthew J. Link said that with direction from the school board, he would like to put together a surveys to send out to parents and the community at large to gain additional input.

“We would be able to actually reduce our district down to two schedules, an elementary schedule and a secondary schedule, not a primary elementary schedule, an upper elementary schedule, and then a secondary schedule,” Link said.

“We see a lot of benefits from that with what we can do within those hours, everything from transportation to even potentially looking at start times and end times of the school day.

“I’m excited about the potential that is here in this project if the school board would direct us to move forward. I think there’s a lot of great things that can continue to happen, and we’re ready to take that work on,” Link said.

Directors weigh-in

After hearing comments, director Gary Fedorcha said, “I think it is the best thing for education, the best thing for the community, and extremely important for our teachers and our students.”

Director Chad Christman said his only potential holdback is what will it cost the district, and how it’s going to impact the taxpayers.

“But yes, I think we should actually continue to check it out,” Christman said. “It sounds great, it looks, great, I support it so far, but before I give it the final thumbs up, obviously the biggest hurdle is the financial impact on our residents.”

Director Gale Husack agreed with Christman and said her biggest concern is how much it will cost the community.

“I am in support of having an idea what financially it would look like, with making the least impact to the community in a whole, but success and future thought of our students’ education and our administration’s staff, and student safety and security,” Husack said.

Director Rhonda Frantz said that with a decision this size, the board needs as much information as it can get.

“So, I’m in favor of moving forward with collecting the information, doing the surveys to the parents just to see what the community thought process is,” Frantz said. “At this point I’m in favor of moving forward with this project, however there are still some pieces that I need for my own personal information.”

Director Robert Kern said that educationally, he believes this is the best thing to do for the students.

“But the other side is we have a liability to the community, and we all know financially where we are, and the apple’s only so big,” Kern said. “So if we keep taking bites out of that apple, what are we going to give up.”

Director Angela Williams said she agreed with Kern.

Board President Mathias Green said the direction is to get numbers, as well as input from the community.

Grade shifts could result in a price tag of $26.8 to $30.2 million, based on a presentation from Liuzza, and Mark Gallick, McClure Company, to the school board in October.

Under the proposal, grades 1 and 2 would leave Peters Elementary School and move to Slatington Elementary School, while sixth grade would leave Slatington Elementary and move to Northern Lehigh Middle School.

The Peters Elementary building would close, with Slatington Elementary housing grades K-5 and Northern Lehigh Middle School grades 6-8. Northern Lehigh High School would remain grades 9-12.