Students at any of five schools in the Belle Vernon Area School District know what it's like to hear the whirr of construction. And they may be hearing more sooner than they think. The school board will soon decide which project to undertake as part of the second phase of the district's renovation project. Superintendent Dr. Charles Chandler on Monday presented directors with a range of options. The first option would add six rooms and a corridor to both Rostraver and Marion elementary schools at an estimated cost of $1.45 million. The second option would be to add a separate building, or primary center, to each elementary school, costing about $2.8 million. The building would house six rooms, a multipurpose room and restrooms. Adding the primary center is primarily for focusing on kindergarteners, according to school Director Dale Patterson. He said he is leaning slightly in favor of that option. "The way I'm leaning now, I kind of like the idea of all-day kindergarten," said Patterson, a former teacher. "The earlier you could step in and see children with problems, the better off you are. But of course I'm flexible" on the decision. School board President Aaron Bialon said he also liked the idea of the primary centers. "The benefit in doing that is (that) it's going to give you the ability to expand to a full-day kindergarten program," Bialon said. A separate building also would allow some programs in the elementary schools to expand, he said. Chandler said, however, that the first two options would not reduce student population in the elementary schools, something he supports. "Research has shown that smaller schools do a better job of meeting student's needs," Chandler said. When a school is smaller, "everybody knows the needs of students with special problems, special needs. Not only is it easier to identify, it's easier to (satisfy) those needs." Chandler also said studies have shown that smaller schools would be even more beneficial to financially disadvantaged students. "School size is most significant to those students living in poverty," Chandler said. "I think it's because students from more affluent homes have cultural advantages that help in their education." A third and fourth option would call for reducing the size of the elementary schools. The third option would move the fifth-grade students from the elementary schools into the middle schools, which would cost about $2.3 million. The middle schools would have to be "zoned" to make fifth and sixth grades separate from seventh and eighth grades. A fourth option to move all fifth and sixth grades into one middle school and seventh and eighth grade into the other has the support of school Director Deborah Puglia. "I prefer the one that splits the middle schools," Puglia said. "That's the setup that I like. I haven't talked to anybody that didn't like that concept." Puglia said she has talked to many parents who don't like sixth grade in the middle school, but the fifth grade is "really too large right now" to stay at the elementary schools. "By moving the fifth grade up, it should enable us to hold all-day kindergarten without expanding elementary schools," Puglia said. "We've disrupted our elementary schools so much for construction over the years, I would really like not to disturb our elementary schools anymore." The fourth option, which also would cost about $2.3 million, would smooth the transition into the unified high school in the district. "I just think it would help a little bit with the 'them and us' thing," Puglia said. But there are disadvantages to the fourth option, and most have to do with busing. "I know what would happen with people who built in a particular area so the kids wouldn't have to be bused far," said Patterson. "I don't know if that would be very popular with the public." "I dislike restructuring the grades," Bialon said. "They're going to still have to share common auxiliary and still have interaction." The board also will weigh the option of beefing up science and technology at the high school, but a cost has not been determined. The district is looking to modernize the antiquated science labs, technology education facilities and family and consumer science facilities. School directors will make their decision at a joint meeting between the buildings and grounds committee and the curriculum committee sometime in March. Bialon said he thought they also would pair the joint meeting with a business meeting so they could make their final decision.

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