After months of community surveys and a district-wide feasibility study, Jim Thorpe Area School District officials are moving closer to a decision that could reshape how and where students are educated for decades to come.

Superintendent Robert Presley presented survey results and cost comparisons Wednesday at a board workshop, asking board members to narrow four restructuring options down to two so that EI Associates, the district’s architectural firm, can perform a detailed cost analysis of each.

“We have to do something, because we have a huge amount of deficiencies in the district that have to be addressed,” Presley said.

Options

In Jim Thorpe, K-8 students attend either L.B. Morris Elementary or the Penn Kidder Campus depending on where they live, while all 9-12 students attend the high school.

The community survey, distributed to taxpayers and parents, ranked four options using a weighted point system: three points for a first-choice selection, two for second, one for third.

The first option, keeping the existing grade configurations as status quo, finished first with 998 points.

Option two, a grade realignment that would send all K-3 students to Penn Kidder and all 4-8 students to L.B. Morris, came in second with 863 points.

Option 4B, creating two K-6 buildings and moving seventh and eighth graders to the high school, finished third with 596 points, followed by Option 4A, which would close Penn Kidder Campus, with 404 points.

Option 1 drew 205 first-choice votes, compared to 151 for Option 2, 90 for Option 4B and 60 for Option 4A.

Cost

According to the feasibility study, both L.B. Morris Elementary and Penn Kidder Campus would likely need two new classrooms plus renovations under the status quo option, with the high school requiring renovations as well. The total project cost under the status quo comes to $39.56 million, with an annual bond payment of $2.75 million.

Operational savings would be just $54,000 per year, leaving taxpayers with a net annual cost of $2.69 million. The study notes that renovations cover only “Rank 1 and Rank 2” needs; the most urgent deficiencies.

By comparison, the second option, reconfiguring Penn Kidder as a K-3 campus and L.B. Morris as a grades 4-8 building, with the high school remaining 9-12, carries a total project cost of $36.56 million.

Its annual bond payment would be $2.5 million but grade realignment would generate $435,000 in operational savings per year, bringing the net annual cost to taxpayers to $2.07 million, or roughly $620,000 less per year than the status quo.

Superintendent’s recommendation

Presley said his personal preference, if he were to choose, would be a slight variation of the second survey option: a K-4 primary school, a grades 5-8 middle school, and a 9-12 high school.

“K to four is a primary area — we can concentrate all of our Title I into that school,” Presley said. “When we do professional development, I have all my kindergarten together. I’m not waiting a half an hour for Penn Kidder to get down here, or L.B. Morris to get up there.”

He also noted potential staffing efficiencies through attrition, saying the consolidation of grade levels could reduce the number of sections needed over time without furloughing any teachers.

“I will never recommend furloughing teachers,” Presley said. “Through attrition, as they retire, you look at it — but I’m not in favor of furloughing. It doesn’t save as much money as you think it does.”

A social dimension also factored into his thinking. Presley said the separation between students from the mountain communities and those from Jim Thorpe proper, a divide he said persists even among high school seniors, could be erased by placing all students in the same buildings from the earliest grades.

“When they come here in the high school and come together for the first time, that pecking order tries to get rearranged in ninth grade,” Presley said. “I sat in meetings talking to students, and they were seniors, and they were still like, ‘Yeah, there’s a division still as a senior, between the mountain and town.’ If you put them all together, there’s no longer a division.”

Other options

Option 4B, keeping both Penn Kidder and L.B. Morris as K-6 buildings and adding a grade 7-8 wing at the high school, drew significant discussion as well. Its total project cost is estimated at $43.12 million with a $3 million annual bond payment. Operational savings would be $395,000 per year, for a net annual cost to taxpayers of $2.61 million.

L.B. Morris Principal Paula Fulks said her building is already at capacity, with staff members working out of converted closets.

“My social worker is in a closet,” Fulks said. “My tech guy is in a closet. They don’t even have actual spaces. A social worker uses a conference room when it’s available to do groups. It’s not practical.”

Fulks said moving seventh and eighth graders out would provide relief and expressed concern about the influence older students have on younger ones in the current K-8 configuration.

“I see a lot of bad influences from seventh and eighth grade on those younger kids,” Fulks said. “On the bus it is a big deal. In the school itself, it is a big deal, no matter how much you try to supervise and control seventh and eighth grade.”

Presley, who spent 15 years as a high school principal in 7-through-12 buildings, said the age gap narrows considerably by the time students reach high school.

“A 14-year-old is a lot closer in maturity to an 18-year-old than a five-year-old,” he said.

The most expensive option considered, Option 4A — closing Penn Kidder and creating a K-6 at L.B. Morris and a 7-through-12 campus at the high school — carries a total project cost of $47.38 million and a $3.3 million bond payment. Its $1.27 million in annual operational savings would leave taxpayers with a net annual cost of $2.03 million, the lowest of any option, but it drew the fewest votes in the community survey.

Director Mary Figura questioned whether the status quo option truly requires two new classrooms at each elementary building, given what she described as flat enrollment projections and an upcoming demographic bubble that appears temporary.

“Can we just get away with renovations looking at census data and looking at our projected enrollment?” she asked.

Presley said EI Associates would examine those questions in detail once the board selects its two preferred options.

“EI would pick that apart once they really dig in,” he said.

The district must submit its two chosen options to EI Associates, which will then provide refined cost projections, detailed savings comparisons, and a full enrollment and facilities analysis before the board makes a final decision.

Jim Thorpe plans to discuss the options more at its regular meeting Wednesday night.