To the Editor:

Elementary (K-5) student enrollment in Northampton Area School District has declined steadily by 13 percent over the past 10 years, even with the addition of pre-K programs.

Before the pandemic, elementary enrollment was predicted to continue declining for the next eight to 10 years, according to consultant Future Think and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Even after closing Franklin Elementary School, existing elementary schools in NASD will have an excess capacity of 194 students for present enrollment. That excess capacity will continue to grow as enrollment continues to decline.

Future elementary enrollment in NASD after the pandemic is uncertain. A recent Associated Press article indicated that, nationally, four in 10 students enrolled in home learning did not return to schools when full-time instruction resumed. For the 2020-21 school year, 25 percent of NASD elementary students were enrolled in elearning, learning entirely from home.

During the past year, 25,000 students left traditional public schools in Pennsylvania, including NASD, for charter and cyber-charter schools. Home schooling has experienced a dramatic increase as well, with many home-school co-op programs experiencing 100-percent to 300- percent increases.

Will elearning students return to NASD facilities in the future? Even if all elearners return to in-person education, NASD will still have excess capacity in its existing elementary schools.

The district is proposing a $70 million building program - in 2021 dollars - to include a new 650-student elementary school, new administration building, new IT facility, new maintenance building, new bus parking facility and new athletic fields. The district has allocated more than a half-million dollars to hire consultants to design, plan, attempt to gain permits for the project and “learn if the project is feasible.”

The new NASD complex would be located adjacent to the planned 288-acre Northampton Business Center, being developed by Jaindl Watson development corporation. The new elementary school would open for the 2025-26 school year. Unrealistic maintenance costs have been presented in an attempt to justify closing and demolishing Moore Elementary School, the only NASD presence in the northeast quadrant of the district. Moore Elementary School does not need $25.5 million in repairs.

Borrowing $70 million for the new building program would result in a $2.6 million increase in debt service in the district’s budget each year, according to district figures, which would require a corresponding increase in taxes, reduction of educational and athletic programs or both.

In addition, borrowing $70 million would consume the majority of the district’s remaining $96.5 million legally allowed borrowing capacity, severely limiting the district’s ability to maintain existing facilities in the future.

Rather than embarking on a $70 million new building program, a more responsible course of action would be to perform realistic maintenance of existing facilities to keep them fully functional, at a fraction of the cost of building new, redrawing existing elementary school boundaries to distribute students more equitably among existing facilities and monitoring enrollment trends for future needs, if any.

Chuck Longacre

Moore Township

Editor’s note: Longacre is a former NASD Board of Education member.