P.I.A.A. News & Notes...

[Emanon]

Southpaw and psycho 'get it'...

Money IS the key factor...

If the state ever refuses to prop-up the small, under funded school districts, consolidation will become a no-brainer... If small schools had to pay their own way, taxpayers might have a big change of heart.

Provincialism reigns supreme in our area. One only needs to check out the Ligonier/Laurel Valley and Blairsville/Saltsburg situations. Both are combined districts, yet parents refuse to consolodate into a single school. Wanna guess why?

[usatf oldguy]

Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better.Do we really want to destroy the small schools in the state? I for one don't,now i'm not against cutting back on adminastrative costs by having them(adminastration) run several schools.As far as people settling for mediocrity by going to small schools come on.I'm sure there are as many succesful people in this world that come from small schools as big schools.You are also giving more kids a chance to compete in organized sports.I think this forges young people and makes them better in the long run.I know of a particular olympian from our area who would have struggled to be one of the top distance runners on a big school (AAA)track team.Imagine if we build these super schools and some of these kids can't compete because of team size limitations.I wonder how many top notch athletes would slip through the cracks.Do we really want factories where you don't know most of the people in the class.Not to mention bigger classes were a teacher can spend less individual time with a student.

[wickedcrossover]

I agree with USATF on this one. Some consolidation may be good if done correctly, but 500 to 100!!?? No way. Sit back and do the math on the # of kids who won't get a chance to compete or participate in extracurricular activities - not just sports but forensics and school plays etc. You think obesity is a problem now? I also believe that without supervised activities that drug use could increase.

As far as class size goes, that'll probably remain the same, you'll just have extra classes, so really there won't be a savings on teachers' salaries because you'll still need about the same #.

[psycho]

Resistance to consolidation is ALL about sports -- PERIOD. In larger schools most of these kids would not play. BUT then this is one way to solve the problem of the Catholic and Charter schools dominating A and AA. So there is going to be a trade off.

Look - I don't think anyone really wants to get rid of all the small schools in PA BUT I think alot of people have taken notice of the constant crying about small school inability to compete so something is going to be done about it. You should be happy. Now the Ferndales and Conamaugh Valleys don't have to yell about how their small school is "the best public school in PA" or "the public school champ" when they lose to a Catholic or Charter school in the state playoffs.

The unintended consequence is that small kids will no longer be able to be shielded from competition. They won't be able to live in their little worlds. They are going to have to compete to make their sports teams. If they don't want this maybe they can petition the new school to have 2 classes of sports teams -- so everyone can play. Maybe get their own "prior to consolidation" or "AYSO" all state teams too. I am sure something can be worked out so everybody gets a trophy.

[usatf oldguy]

Yes this would be our government at its finest.Consolidate schools because they changed the playoff system which in the 70's was doing quite fine thank you very much.So let me see they create a problem and now we fix the problem with consolidation.Here's a novel idea put things back the way they were.Let small schools alone, they are not this evil incarnate that turns out nothing but under achievers! The government has enough problems as it is without messing with consolidating the schools!Heck since they have gotten involved with the PIAA there has been nothing but problems.Simple answer private classifications,period.