Is State Ready to Shutter District?

A handful of years since the voluntary merger of two Beaver County school districts lowered Pennsylvania’s school district count from 501 to 500, the state appears poised to use its power to close down the Duquesne School District and bring the count to 499.

All that is left of the District is an elementary school-middle and high school students have been attending neighboring districts. We documented the academic and financial condition of the District in late 2011 and showed that proficiency was not getting better in upper grades and had fallen in lower grades. Spending per student approached $20,000, most of it coming from Federal and state sources. That piece was predicated on work done by the Institute in 2003.

Last year the District came under a new law, Act 141, which functions as a way to resuscitate distressed schools, much like Act 47. The recovery officer for the District (Duquesne operated under a control board for much of its recent history) made it known that the economics of keeping an elementary school open won’t work, nor would a charter school, so it looks like either a voluntary or mandatory transfer of elementary students.

At the conclusion of that 2011 Brief we offered the following: "one would hope the board, the administration, and the staff would care enough about their obligation to the kids and taxpayers to support drastic remedial steps, including closing the school". Here we are now, though the push to close the school is not coming from any of those parties