Community members in the Northern Lehigh School District can still share their input on the proposed common campus model on the district’s website, or complete paper surveys available at the district office.

Superintendent Dr. Matthew J. Link said on Monday he was seeking direction from the school board regarding mailing of paper surveys to the community as previously discussed during the February committee meeting in regards to potentially moving to a common campus in the district.

“Administration has been working to facilitate this process through the United States Postal Service, but it has proven to be cumbersome and unclear,” Link said. “Over the past four weeks, (district business manager) Mrs. (Sherri) Molitoris and I have navigated a lengthy, at times somewhat frustrating series of steps, including interacting with the USPS website and making multiple calls to customer support, coordinating with post offices in Slatington, Lehighton and Kentucky to determine the most effective operations and how to complete them, being directed to Lehighton, only to be told that they could not process our requests, and we need to return to Slatington, and then learning that applications must be processed online, which we began, and then approved by an office in New York, requiring additional multiday turnaround times, and then returning to the Lehighton branch for the next step in the multistep approval process.

“At one point after filing all the instructions given to us, we were ultimately informed that we had received inaccurate guidance leading to further internal USPS discussions amongst themselves. Given the ongoing delays and unexpectedly high costs, I now recommend exploring alternative solutions to ensure that community members, particularly those who are not parents, guardians or employees, still have an opportunity to provide input.

“As an alternative, I propose that we still send directly to all of our employees and parents and guardians a direct link to respond to the survey questions, and instead of doing paper mailings of surveys to all the community members who do not fall into one of those categories, we place a link on the district website for community members to access and submit their input, advertising in local media when a public Act 34 hearing is scheduled; that’s a hearing that school districts are compelled to have whenever they are looking to do an addition to an existing building that is greater than 20% of the existing square footage of the building, where community members can come in and publicly provide input at the meeting, and making paper surveys available at the district office for any individuals who prefer to complete them in person.”

Link said he was looking for direction from the school board to move forward with the proposed alternative methods for community members to provide input on potential expansions at Northern Lehigh Middle School first, and then Slatington Elementary School.

Director Donna Kulp said she was fine with the suggestions Link suggested as an alternative.

Director Gary Fedorcha said he was good with that as well.

Director Bob Kern said he was fine as the district will advertise in publications about the survey being online or people can come and pick up paper copies if they want to.

In January, 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 buildings on one site, where three of the district’s four schools are now located.

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.

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

Step two is in 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 goes offline.

She said the sequence would be that once the middle school addition would be complete, the design process could start. Design time is about 12 to 14 month; 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 time frame.

Peters is not figured into the time frame since the district hasn’t decided how it will be used.

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

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.