Push for public school consolidation mandate

To the Editor:

During the 1960s in Pennsylvania, many new school districts were formed by merging public schools that were located close to one another. For example, Northumberland and Sunbury joined together to form the Shikellamy School District, Middleburg and West Snyder formed the Midd-West School District and the Wyoming Valley-West School District is a merger of several public schools located on the West side of the Susquehanna River near Wilkes-Barre.

Unfortunately, there are far too many public school districts in Pennsylvania with the number close to 500. At the same time, our neighboring state of Maryland has only 24 school districts and at least one southern state won’t allow more than one district to a county.

Three Wilkes-Barre area schools were recently merged into The Wilkes-Barre Area School District. The number of administrators in the schools has increased by 700% since the 1950s; therefore, the governor and the legislature will have to mandate the consolidation of many more public schools to reduce the number of schools and administrators to a bare minimum.

Public school consolidation has many advantages for the facility and staff, the students and taxpayers, and it should be mandated as soon as possible.

David L. Faust

Selinsgrove