Lower Merion School Board Petition #1

VOTERS HEREBY PETITION THE LOWER MERION SCHOOL BOARD TO RETHINK THE SIZE OF THE NEW HARRITON HIGH SCHOOL. DOUBLING THE SIZE OF HARRITON DOES NOT SEEM TO MAKE ANY SENSE IN LIGHT OF THE INFORMATION BELOW:

Its official. Projections indicate declining student enrollment for LMSD for the foreseeable future. Its understandable. The baby boom generation saw their way through LM schools with LMSD enrollments above 10,000 students. The echo boom, the kids of the baby boom, made their way through our schools. And today, LMSD has less than 7,000 students. Through it all Harriton and Lower Merion High Schools have served us well and continue to serve us well.

Now, with relatively low student enrollment 3,000 students less than years past and facing a future of declining enrollments, we are going to tear down both high schools and build new high schools. Well double the size of Harriton High School. Lower Merion High School is planned to be reconstructed, approximately, to its current size. Harriton is going to double in size from roughly 161,200 sq ft to roughly 327,790 sq ft.

Relatively low student enrollment 3,000 students less than years past and facing a future of declining enrollments it suggests, doubling the size of Harriton High School is a mistake.

We invite any school board member, or our superintendent/ceo, or our business manager/cfo, to share with our community the basis for doubling the size of Harriton High School.

The current high schools worked fine for enrollments above 10,000 students for years past. Now, with less than 7,000 current students and pending enrollment declines, DOUBLING THE SIZE OF HARRITON DOES NOT SEEM TO MAKE ANY SENSE.

Enrollment sources.
1.http://www.lmsd.org/hsmodernization/documents/cac_final.pdf page 26
2.http://www.lowermerionhistory.org/texts/first200/education_8.html
3.http://www.pde.state.pa.us/k12statistics/lib/k12statistics/0506LowerMerionSD.pdf
Facility size sources.
1.District Facts page 57 of 111, 2005-2006 Budget Book
2.http://www.lmsd.org/news/static/060830_act34.pdf page 30 of 44