Very soon, Wilkinsburg School District will become the second school district in Allegheny County (along with Duquesne) that will not offer a full K-12 education within the district’s borders.  Starting next year, grades 7-12 will attend Westinghouse in the Pittsburgh Public School District.  That will leave Wilkinsburg with two elementary schools–Kelly, with 361 students and Turner, with 255 students, based on the most recent data from the PA School Performance Profile.

In an August 2014 article related to school size and what districts in Allegheny County have done in response to declining and/or shifting enrollments and the presence of expanded charter school options, the Wilkinsburg school board president noted that “The expenses of running the district don’t go down because a student leaves”.  About 270 of the student body is leaving under the PPS arrangement, and there will be a tuition payment of $8,000 per-pupil based on the agreement made with the approval of the state.  It is not clear what will happen with the school building that will be vacated, nor what will happen to the teachers employed by the district that taught in the grades being transferred.

One item that does not appear it will change is the District’s property tax rate, which will remain at 32.68 mills for 2016-17, that rate it has been since 2013-14.  If Duquesne’s experience is any guide, its tax rate remained at 21 mills from 2006-07 through 2012-13, then fell to 17.5 when the reassessment took effect, and has stayed there since then (it is not clear what the 2016-17 rate will be).