On Jan 20, the School Board is meeting in regards to the three proposals made by Dr. Thomas Otto.
The first proposal states that the AAJHS will be changed to a middle school, AAMS.
Although no decision by the school board has been made, the administration has had several meetings in regards to possible outcomes. The staff of administration has had meetings prior to the arrival of the Director of Education, Dr. Betsy Baker, however, “I was in the last couple of them, I believe,” Baker said.
Most of these increasing populations are due to the two elementary schools shutting down, Washington Jefferson and Wright.
“From the numbers I’ve seen, I think the enrollment has basically leveled out. I think it is stable, but when the two schools closed, it made those a little tighter in the elementary schools. There really isn’t space for the population moving up through. For example, you’ve got two fifth grades going out, and three kindergartens coming in. The empty rooms have been taken up,” Baker said.
Measurements have been recorded recently and are available as public information, shown below.
One major point of interest is the situation in regards to lockers in the high school. Many students are talking about the possible outcome of locker sharing.
“They looked at the number of classrooms, they counted the students in the classrooms, and they counted lockers, actually. I understand there is a significant number of lockers left in the high school. There were plenty of lockers,” Baker said.
Although Baker did not create the proposal, when asked which of the three plans she felt would be most effective and successful for the future of Altoona Area School District, Baker was hesitant on giving her opinion.
When asked about her opinion in regard to how the board will vote on these options, Baker said, “Honestly, only the board gets to decide. Whatever way the board goes, I’ll support that decision.”
Many tenth graders expressed concern about the increased number of students in the building this proposal would bring.
“The high school isn’t crowded,” Baker said. “If you have the space, you tend to use it. If you walk through the high school during the school day, you will see there are rooms with nobody scheduled to be in there at that point.”
Stepping back into the school itself, many students have strong opinions on the matter.
Breanna Richers, a current Sophomore at AAHS said, “There’s definitely a lot of room in the high school. It’s barely crowded now, but I believe that if the ninth graders come, it’ll make a drastic change to how crowded hallways are and make classrooms completely full.”
Freshman, Isaac Kormanski is opening his locker in
the AAJHS. Photo by Emily Simmons.
Class size Average Analysis
Grade Baker Ebner Irving Juniata J. Gap Logan Penn L. Pl. V.
K 2-27 4-24 2-25 4-22 4-23 4-22 4-25 2-24
1 2-23 4-24 2-23 4-22 4-23 4-19 5-24 3-19
2 2-26 3-25 2-24 4-20 4-21 4-20 4-22 3-22
3 3-21 3-28 2-24 3-24 4-20 4-22 4-23 3-22
4 2-22 3-23 2-23 3-26 4-25 4-25 3-26 3-26
5 2-28 3-27 2-23 3-26 3-30 4-22 3-27 3-25
6 2-31 3-23 2-25 3-21 4-29 4-22 3-31 3-26
School Capacity Analysis
School Building School Yr Increase School Yr Increase School Yr
* Capacity 2014/15 (Decrease) 2013/14 (Decrease) 2012/13
From 12/13 From 12/13
Baker 375 373 43 366 36 330
PL 675 636 274 620 258 362
Ebner 675 588 139 559 110 449
PV 575 469 (113) 518 (64) 582
Logan 725 605 (4) 646 37 609
Juniata 800 581 192 579 190 389
JG 650 638 22 631 15 616
Irving 375 331 20 313 2 311
W&J 600 PreSchool PreSchool 241
Wright 800 __ ___0_ ____0_ __ _326
* TOTAL _____4,221 ___4,232 __4,215