NEW CASTLE Board mulls school options

By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- The school district is considering closing Ben Franklin Junior High School and sending those seventh- and eighth-graders to the new city high school.
School board members agreed Wednesday to have Eckles Architecture of New Castle look at the feasibility of the move.
Nick DeRosa, assistant superintendent, said the district would only close the junior high school if there is a cost savings.
The architects will try to determine if the high school to be built can accommodate the 600 extra junior high school pupils. There are about 1,000 pupils in the high school now, he said.
Construction on the high school is expected to start sometime next week and will take about two years.
Considered idea before
DeRosa said officials considered making the building a junior/senior high school when they first talked about it, but the district later discarded that option. He did not know why.
DeRosa said they are looking at possible savings in staffing and operating costs because they would only be moving classrooms and would not have to worry about other costs like janitors, secretaries and the cafeteria.
The study should be completed by the end of this year, he said.
If any extra space would have to be added to the new high school, that would be considered phase three and the work would be done sometime after initial construction, he said.
It's unclear what will happen to the junior high on Cunningham Avenue if the pupils are moved to the new high school.