PV super: ‘I wish we could do more’

Administrators, teachers and staff in the cash-strapped Panther Valley School District contend with a daily challenge of having to do more with less. This raises the obvious question: What does the future hold for this distressed school district? Superintendent Dennis R. Kergick Sr. doesn’t care for the word, and that is understandable, because part of his job is to put the best face possible on an ultra-grim situation.

Make no mistake about it, though, Kergick is not a Pollyanna about the district’s dire straits.

“I wish we could do much more,” he said.

He concedes that struggles are ramped up under these conditions.

Among a number of other problems aside from money, the district has trouble keeping qualified teachers. Seeking greener pastures and more money, seven members of the instructional staff have left since July, he said. One with 11 years of experience went to a nearby district to make $12,000 more a year.

“We can’t even come close to matching that; the best we can do is offer some extracurricular opportunities when they exist.”

Despite this, Kergick insists that children are not getting an inferior education.

“We have some dedicated staff members who are committed to seeing that our kids succeed,” he said.

The district has joined with five others in the same boat in suing the state to reform its state subsidy program. After several years of legal wrangling, Commonwealth Court has agreed to hear the case, but not until 2020.

One of the other districts is Shenandoah Valley in Schuylkill County, which Kergick describes as comparable in size and issues to Panther Valley.

In the court filing, Kergick said Panther Valley has been unable to restore reductions made eight years ago when it made significant staff cuts.

There are no librarians in the district, nor has it been able to adequately staff the administration. The intermediate school has one reading specialist for about 450 students.

The district’s business manager, Kenneth R. Marx Jr., cited one major example of funding inequities: Every year, he said, the district spends about $6 million on special education students but receives just $1 million in state reimbursement.

The state just announced recently, however, that it is addressing this deficiency as part of its Every Student Succeeds Act initiative.

Charter, but mostly cyber, students cost the district more every year, too, now up to $1.5 million for between 100 and 120 students. These costs have been rising annually since 2007, Marx said.

Asked where he sees Panther Valley in five years if the trend lines are not reversed, Kergick suspects consolidation with a surrounding school district might be an answer. There are nearly 500 school districts in the state, some of which are experiencing the same financial angst as Panther Valley, he said.

Just as was the case in the early-1960s when there was a massive consolidation of districts across the state, any merger attempts will likely raise howls of protest from the public who jealously and passionately guard home rule principles.

Kergick, however, says that he sees signs that communities are “slowly shedding their skin of identity,” which might help make consolidation not only more practical but more palatable, especially when viewed against some of the more unpleasant alternatives.

When asked whether he expects to be around if such a consolidation is to occur down the road, Kergick said, “Lord knows.”

Before Panther Valley, with an enrollment of about 1,500, came into existence 54 years ago, each of the four boroughs which make up the district — Coaldale, Lansford, Nesquehoning and Summit Hill — had their own school districts. Classes were small and offerings were limited.

“It’s sad,” Marx said about the bleak financial picture at Panther Valley as the budget season for 2019-20 begins in earnest, “because decisions hurt students. I’d love to compete fiscally and educationally with other districts, but it’s not possible now.”

And with just one major industry in the four-municipality district providing significant tax revenues — KME in Nesquehoning — there is no major incoming industry on the horizon.