Keystone Central plans public meetings on school safety

BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP, PA – The Keystone Central School District plans to hold public meetings on the issue of safety within district schools. Board president David Dietrich announced the meetings at Thursday night’s school board meeting.

He read a prepared statement in which he said the district will be “shoring up our plans” in the area of school safety and that public meetings will be announced. His statement followed concerns expressed by a senior co-ed at Central Mountain High School at last week’s board work session. The student asked the board for assistance in making district schools safer.

The board heard Thursday night from two co-eds from the junior class at Central Mountain High. They raised concerns about the length of the school day at the high school. They said the 7 hour 20 minute school day means dismissal an hour later than some other area schools.

Superintendent Jacquelyn Martin said the district is looking at “potential solutions” to the points raised by the students. She noted the difficulty in scheduling because of shared bussing as the district maintains two high schools.

The superintendent, in her report, said the recent decision by Commonwealth Court throwing out the existing state funding mechanism for school districts was a “huge win” for public schools and expressed the hope that Harrisburg can come up with a new funding stream fair to “every zip code” in the state.

She also announced a public meeting will be held on Feb. 28 to provide an update on plans for a new Liberty-Curtin Elementary School in Blanchard.