Pennridge School District proposes closure of South Middle School
The Pennridge School District has proposed the closure of South Middle School, citing declining enrollment and soaring expenses across the district.
Under the proposal, students will be redistricted to Central and North Middle Schools in the 2027-2028 school year, while the school may be repurposed and/or leased.
Opened in 1931 as Sell-Perk High School, the building has served as a middle school since 1954 following the opening of Pennridge High School and was last renovated in 1990. It currently houses 386 students, down from a peak of 531 students in the 2004-2005 school year.
Declining enrollment
During the board’s discussion of the plan at its most recent student services committee meeting, Assistant Superintendent Bradley Palmer noted that Pennridge has lost over 1,100 students, or 16%, since the 2016-2017 school year. In the coming years, the district’s enrollment is projected to decline by an additional 450 students, or 7.4%, before leveling out around 2030.
Meanwhile, the district continues to grapple with a difficult financial situation due to flat local tax revenue and insufficient state revenue amid soaring costs, namely special education, cyber charter tuition and insurance expenses. The challenges compelled the school board last year to implement its first tax increase in eight years, with another increase expected this year.
The closure of South Middle School is projected to save an estimated $3.3 million annually, primarily due to a reduction in personnel costs, according to a 2017 study. Enrollment at Central and North Middle Schools would jump from 475 and 529, respectively, to roughly 700 students per school, still below 70% utilization, said Palmer.
South Middle School was selected over Central and North Middle Schools due to having the lowest enrollment and highest projected decreasing enrollment, the oldest and smallest building and the absence of amenities like an auditorium and athletic fields, said Palmer.
School staff, parents object
During the committee meeting, South Middle School staff and parents roundly condemned the proposal, raising concerns about teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, lunchroom congestion, longer transportation times and disruptions to students’ educational equality and relationships, noting the school’s intimate, family-friendly environment.
“South Middle School is not a financial drain,” said Celise Hall-Huber, a middle school digital literacy teacher. “It’s a functioning, supportive, community-centered school that provides stability for students who need it. Closing it will not save you what you think it will save, but it will cost us something far more important — the relationships, culture and sense of belonging that make South Middle School a family.”
Others questioned the proposal’s projected savings, citing the costs of teacher transfers and additional transportation, as well as the district’s projected enrollment figures, pointing to new housing developments.
“If enrollment projections, which are pretty level right now, happen to be wrong and it happens to go up, it would cost $130 million to build a new school,” said a South Middle School grandfather. “Maintaining South is a good insurance policy. The amount that will be saved is speculative, because some of those costs will transfer over. It’s a very valuable part of our community. It has been for some time, and it still has a lot of life left within it.”
‘A regrettable necessity’
In response, administrators and some board members framed the proposal as a regrettable necessity due to the district’s enrollment and financial challenges. Palmer noted that Pennridge’s population growth is almost exclusively comprised of adults, while the school-age population has consistently decreased, falling from 0.422 to 0.33 per household from 2000 to 2022.
“People are having less kids and there are retirees who are now living in the district,” said Palmer. “The percentage of people 50 and over has continued to increase within the school district boundary.”
Superintendent Angelo Berrios stressed that the district has a “fiduciary responsibility” to respond to the data and expressed a desire to reduce staffing through retirement incentives and attrition rather than layoffs.
“We are not looking to furlough positions and hand people their walking papers,” said Berrios. “We are looking at the space we have, and we’re projecting out what we can do to be financially solvent. We do have to take a look at the brutal facts here and talk about it.”
“We’re gonna be losing money for the next three years,” added board member Ron Wurz. “So we have to do something to bring our costs in line. It’s not something we enjoy doing but we’re trying to make sure we set the school up for the future correctly. We need to do something now or we’re gonna really pay for it later.”
Board president Carolyn Sciarrino emphasized that the plan is in its initial stages and remains under consideration.
“There is a lot still to figure out. We do have a lot of questions,” said Sciarrino. “This is a conversation we’re having. It’s not set in stone.”
Under the proposal’s current timeline, described by Palmer as “ambitious,” the district will form working groups and begin planning over the summer, develop scenarios and engage the community in the fall, and present a formal proposal and hold a public hearing in the winter. Board approval is anticipated for spring 2027, with implementation planned for August 2027.
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The next Pennridge School Board meeting is on June 15. For more information, visit pennridge.org.
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