On June 3, the Salisbury Township School District board held a special meeting via Zoom to vote on the closure of Western Salisbury Elementary School in a reconfiguration of the grades in the district.

The meeting opened with a period for public comment, with most input advocating strongly against the closure but also with many voices calling for an end to staffing and programming cuts in Salisbury schools.

The comment period continued to hear passionate voices from both eastern and western sides of the community for almost an hour. Chris Freas presented the results of a Change.org petition distributed via various community groups online, but was not admitted to the board meeting agenda, despite his requests to do so in a timely fashion. Freas reported that since May 8 the petition gathered 1,183 signatures asking the school board to vote “no” on the issue of reconfiguration.

Board President George Gatanis asked if all the names included on the petition were Salisbury township residents; however, Freas could not confirm this.

Joel Schware, of Salisbury, said he felt there had been a significant lack of adequate communication and transparency from the board during the planning process for reconfiguration and hoped the board would keep searching for an alternative to closing the beloved community school.

At the close of the public comment section, board members were encouraged to voice their thoughts on the upcoming resolution to the board members in attendance.

Board member Joseph Gnall explained that while he understands the dire financial situation the district is currently in, he wondered if there was another way to assuage community concerns while still offering a balanced budget, such as moving WSE students into the middle school, rather than fifth graders from both sides of the township.

Board Secretary Michael Taylor pointed out that while there might be a few additional costs for reconfiguring the grades in the district that will need to be considered in the current budget, there would also be line items that would need to be put back into the budget in the event that WSE is kept open. To keep that building open and operational, the district would require a bond issuance in the neighborhood of $3-4 million to go toward repairs.

Many board members referred to keeping the school open as “kicking the can down the road,” as it would be putting temporary fixes to long-term problems that would end up costing the district a great deal more capital in the long term.

Board members such as Courtney Gibbs relayed concern for closing the elementary school and reducing space for students in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic and cited concern for lack of a well thought-out plan for reconfiguration.

Board member Samuel DeFrank rebutted the latter issue by pointing out that a plan has been fully developed and refined over the course of the last several months.

With all viewpoints voiced, board member Carol Klinger said, “If we don’t close Western, the further cuts will be devastating to the entire district, K-12. I don’t know how I can choose a building over … education.”

With that, at almost 11 p.m., the board put the resolution to a vote, where it passed narrowly at a margin of 5-4. Audrey Frick, Gibbs, Gnall and Sarah Nemitz cast “no” votes for the reconfiguration. The “yes” votes were from DeFrank, David Hadinger, Klinger, Mary Ziegler and Gatanis. All board members appeared sobered by the decision, understanding the weight of their actions for the whole of the community, already struggling under the weight of coronavirus and during a time of nationwide unrest.

“I don’t think you could have created a more perfect storm,” Nemitz said.

Gatanis thanked all the members of the community and board who dedicated time and attention to the matter, finishing the meeting with closure on the issue of reconfiguration, but with questions about what the 2020-2021 school year will look like in actuality still lingering.