Legislators receive first-hand look at SVSD ‘at crossroads,’ see successes and needs

SHENANDOAH – Local lawmakers were given a first-hand look Friday at what Shenandoah Valley School District leaders called a district “at the crossroads” as it grapples with limited resources and growing needs.

State Senator David G. Argall (R-29) and State Rep. Dane Watro joined the school district’s admin team and board members on a tour of the district’s campus.

Standing outside the district office, between the 1981-built high school and 1994-built elementary center, Superintendent Brian Waite told the lawmakers he didn’t come to SV “to be a leader who has to minimize collateral damage,” but that has become the reality.

The district has continued to suffer from inadequate funding compared to its needs, an issue that has only been exacerbated by a teacher shortage and an uptick in both overall student population and students with specialized needs.

Capital needs were also shown to the lawmakers. In the cafeterias, the kitchen equipment is often as old as the building its in.

Building and Grounds Supervisor David Lukashunas said the district has had to find creative solutions to some of its needs.

He showed where the former football locker room had been converted to storage space, which is extremely limited on campus, and the boiler room, where one of the district’s anthracite-fired boiler has recently been replaced with a natural gas boiler.

That replacement was by necessity, as the anthracite boilers were installed with the building and parts are no longer manufactured and are extremely hard to find, leaving Lukashunas to fashion parts himself if possible.

The football grandstands were also shown, which are set to be replaced soon. They are among the last wooden grandstands left in the region and are becoming a safety issue, he said.

A feasibility study is also underway to find a solution to the district’s growth.

With what Waite calls a record enrollment of over 1,200 students, the district is quickly running out of space across the three buildings just over 10 years after the new extension was built to alleviate previous overcrowding issues dating back to the 1990s.

Though, the district finds itself back in a familiar place asking a familiar question: Where can we even expand?

In the late 1990s, before modulars were placed on campus, the district re-purchased the former Roosevelt Junior High and considered housing students. At that time, several businesses sat between the elementary center and the elementary access road. Those properties were acquired in the late 2000s and razed to make way for the 2012 extension, which led to the removal of the modulars.

“We’re most likely going to have to move on doing something,” Lukashunas said.

Watro and Argall heard from district administration and board members in a roundtable discussion in the new elementary STEM lab.

The STEM lab is a key achievement for the district, the culmination of a community effort providing donations and equipment to convert the former elementary library, but Waite says, with funding situations, he worries it may not be sustainable.

Shenandoah Valley was one of several school districts who successfully sued to have the current educational funding system struck down as unconstitutional.

Argall, as chair of the Senate education committee, is a key legislator in shaping the new formula.

“As great as this is, it’s presented us a lot of challenges as well,” Waite said, citing the fact that students only receive the STEM lab education until sixth grade. The district does not have the resources or space to provide the same at the high school level.

Waite noted that the district is missing out on $676k in Level Up funding and has had to use one-time grants for some critical staff additions, including the addition of social workers and police officers.

He added that one of the district’s five English Language Learner (formerly English as a Second Language) teachers are paid for by the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund grant, which is not a permanent funding source.

Teachers are also hard to find, and the district struggles to remain competitive. Administrators said the district’s longest-tenured staffers are dedicated to the district, attracting and retaining younger talent has been a key challenge.

Teachers have left for other local school districts seeking higher pay and, according to a handout at the visit, Shenandoah Valley has the fourth-lowest starting salary in Schuylkill County and, in 2024-25, will be second-lowest and at least $3,000 behind six other districts.

The handout added that the district lost 5% of staffers in the past two years due to salary.

All while Waite called for changes to the way charter schools are funding, noting the need for an even playing field between districts and cyber-charters.

He asked the legislators about a bill that would have cut costs for districts like Shenandoah Valley by 40%, passed the House by 122-81 and is currently sitting dormant on Argall’s desk as committee chair.

The bill would change the formula for how charters are funded, though those funds would still come from districts.

Argall said he is hoping to get people “who don’t normally talk to each other” to the table to agree on smaller issues, build trust, and then tackle the bigger issues in the bill.

Though the bill passed the house, Watro, Tim Twardzik, Joanne Stehr, and Jamie Barton — Schuylkill County’s house delegation — all voted against it.

“That alone, if that bill passed on face value, that’s $340,000 to us every year,” Waite said. “In my opinion, we can’t compromise, we can’t bundle, we can’t horse-trade to do something that closes the gap in funding from where we’re at.”

“There has to be something done with the special education formula that’s in there because that’s just egregious to districts and there has to be something more done to hold charter schools accountable,” Waite told Argall.

Watro did mention that the district received an 8.3% increase in basic and special education funding, which Waite said, while he is grateful for it, “That’s a drop in the bucket,” saying they are short $10,000 per student or $12 Million total.

Shenandoah, additionally, has also struggled with a more transient student population, with some students leaving for months at a time, leaving the country entirely and sometimes without notice.

School Board President Dan Salvadore said, with all its challenges, the district is “at a crossroads.”

Waite said the conversation was productive.

“I feel good about our conversation, I think it’s good for us to be able to let them know the state of Shenandoah and the urgency and the needs that we have,” Waite said. “They get to see it at the ground level, especially at the time that we’re at in education when we’re looking at the basic education funding, the lawsuit, and trying to close those gaps between underfunded districts like Shenandoah and 80% of the other school districts in the state of Pennsylvania.”

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