Published: May 16, 2008 11:36 pm      

Group opposing middle-school split to meet

EBENSBURG — A group of parents and residents are organizing to fight the Central Cambria school board’s decision to split the middle-school grades.

The plan will send sixth-graders to elementary schools and seventh- and eighth-graders to the high school.

Calling themselves the “Committee to Save Grades 6 to 8,” the group is distributing announcements of a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Jackson Elementary School.

No names are listed and the announcement only describes an organizational meeting to begin a petition drive against the school board’s decision.

Central Cambria Superintendent Susan Makosy confirmed that school officials, including her office, have received the announcements, but she stressed it is not a meeting organized by the district.

The decision to do away with the middle-school grouping was made May 5, after board members heard strong pleas from parents and teachers to keep grades six through eight together.

The vote was 5-4, with board members Frank Singel, Marcia Yesenosky-Shaheen, Ron Mastrine, Pat Allbaugh and Wayne Farabaugh voting against keeping the grades together.

Board members voting in the minority were Jules Dill, Scott Magley, Joe Stephan and Eric Rummell.

The vote leaves only one option on the table – altering Central Cambria High School to take seventh- and eighth-graders, and building additions at Cambria and Jackson elementaries to take sixth-graders.

Angry parents at the May 5 meeting vowed to fight the decision at the local and state level.

But state Department of Education officials say they will not intervene.

“We don’t have much to say about it,” spokeswoman Leah Harris said. “These issues are strictly issues of local control.

“There is no current state methodology,” she said. “Sure, there are studies, but we don’t stick to just one theory.

“Grade groupings are individual decisions, and they should be based on what’s best for the students. Really, we’re unable to say what works best,” she said.

The Central Cambria dispute about grade groupings is the latest in years of debates about the future of the 79-year-old middle-school building in Ebensburg.

In 2006, the school board voted to close the middle school, but reversed the decision when a volunteer panel could not reach a consensus.

The current board is mulling options including a $20 million renovation to the existing middle school and less expensive options of closing it and splitting up the grades.