POTTSTOWN PA – A call went out Monday (Aug. 15, 2011) to parents across the Pottsgrove School District, in which Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis said he hoped to have “at least three or four” representatives from each elementary building – Lower Pottsgrove, Ringing Rocks, and West Pottsgrove – volunteer for a group that could reshape how and where the district provides education to its youngest students.

Pottsgrove’s Elementary Redistricting Committee “will meet throughout the fall and bring recommendations to the school board by early next year” on how kindergarten through fifth grades might be re-configured to make better use of building space and avoid potential overcrowding, Landis wrote, in a letter district spokeswoman Beth Trapani said was distributed Monday.

Parents interested in serving on the committee are asked to call Landis’ secretary, Barbara Paolucci, at 610-327-2277 Ext. 1011, or send her an e-mail (here) by no later than Sept. 9 (2011; Friday).

Although committee membership will be limited, all “parents will have several opportunities to learn about (its) suggestions, and to make comments of their own via public meetings and our website,” Landis added.

The letter puts into motion a decision last Tuesday (Aug. 9) by the district Board of School Directors to consider what Landis called “adjusting the elementary attendance boundaries.” The committee would be asked to study elementary enrollment patterns across Lower, Upper and West Pottsgrove (PA) townships and recommend whether attendance borders, the man-made lines that determine which children attend which schools, should be altered “to balance enrollment numbers across the three.”

Landis also suggested the committee explore the possibility of significant change in the district’s elementary organization, by creating two schools (West and Ringing) for kindergarten through second grade only, and opening a Grades 3-5 Center at Lower. Among the advantages, Landis told school board members, could be reduced staffing costs in future budgets.

First-grade capacity problems became evident in June and grew in July at West Pottsgrove Elementary, Grosstown Road, Stowe PA. By comparison, both the newly reconstructed Ringing, on Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA, which is anticipated to reopen after the district’s winter holiday break, and Lower, on Buchert Road, Pottstown, have extra classroom space available.

During the school year that begins Aug. 29 (Monday), Landis reported Lower projects its enrollment as 677 students, compared to its capacity for 730; Ringing, 344, compared to a capacity of 550; and West, already filled to its capacity of 450. One intent in renovations at Ringing, Landis noted, “was to provide capacity at the elementary level to ease potential overcrowding at the other two … schools.”

Committee recommendation for changes, if any, would not be implemented until the 2012-2013 school term. Already named to the committee are school board members Philip Keogh, Patricia Grimm and David Faulkner, and district office administration, principals and teacher representatives.

Related (to Pottsgrove School District redistricting):

• Landis Calls For Pottsgrove Redistricting Volunteers
• Touchy Pottsgrove Redistricting Now Being Considered

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ meeting of Aug. 9):

• Landis Calls For Pottsgrove Redistricting Volunteers
• 32 Personnel Positions Affected By Pottsgrove Approvals
• Pottsgrove High Appointments ‘Give District Some Time’
• Touchy Pottsgrove Redistricting Now Being Considered
• Pottsgrove Teacher Named Western Center Principal