Laurel Highlands mulls school closures
MetroCreative
In response to declining enrollment and aging facilities, the Laurel Highlands School District is weighing its options, including shutting down multiple elementary schools and reallocating grade levels among the remaining buildings.
Superintendent Dr. Jesse Wallace said the district had contracted with Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates for a of ways to make the district operate more efficiently.
Last week, the school board heard a presentation on four options, whittled down by the board from 13 presented by the firm at an earlier meeting in September.
Three of the four options include shutting down RW Clark Elementary School and Hatfield Elementary School. A variant of that option also includes the closure of Hutchinson Elementary School would also be closed.
Wallace said no decision has been made by the board yet, though that could change after the board’s Dec. 1 reorganizational meeting depending on what it wants to do at that time.
If the board did make a preliminary decision, “we would put out notices to the public that this is going to be discussed at a committee meeting or at a board meeting, and welcome any type of commentary on that from the public,” he said. “Right now, all we have done is listen to the report findings.”
The district’s total enrollment was at 2,710 in 2024-25, versus 3,637 20 years ago, according to data from the state Department of Education. Over the same span, Hatfield went from 415 to 342; Clark went from 429 to 302; and Hutchinson went from 341 to 308.
The district’s other elementary school, Marshall, had 300 students in the 2024-25 school year and 401 in 2004-05.
Consultants said those enrollment drops equated to underutilized space for the district. About 71% of elementary space was being used, along with 60% at the middle school and 70% at the high school, according to the report.
Following one of the report’s recommendations to close elementary schools would result in significant savings, the report found. Maintaining the status quo, and developing a master plan to bring the elementary buildings up to code and make them educationally sustainable would cost between $47.8 and $57.4 million, according to the presentation.
In all four elementary schools, the mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems were reaching the end of their useful life, the consultants found.
Cost estimates for other options included classroom additions in the remaining elementary schools and renovations.
A second option would redistrict kindergarten through third grades to Hutchinson and Marshall elementary schools. In turn, fourth and fifth grades would be moved to the middle school, while the high school would absorb the eighth grade. That cost would range from $27.3 to $32.3 million, the report said.
A similar third option would differ from the second by also moving seventh-graders to the high school. That was more expensive, consultants said, costing somewhere between $31.4 and $37.6 million.
The fourth option would narrow the youngest schools to kindergarten through second grade, dividing the two upper schools between third through sixth grade and seventh through 12th.
It was presented in two forms: One where Clark and Hatfield close, and another where Hutchinson or Marshall also closes. In that scenario, a 250-student addition would be used to bring the K-2 school back down to 88% capacity.
The Clark-Hatfield option bore the same costs as the third option. Closing a third elementary school as well presented lower costs, between $24.1 and $28.7 million, the study determined.
Wallace said at this point, there is no timetable for a decision.
“They could sit on this for six months, a year, before they do anything — or not do anything at all,” he said.