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Equity For New Lower Merion High Schools Study

We are looking for feedback to our "Equity for New High Schools Study"
please email us at lwvoters@mac.com -Thank you for participating in this very important local issue.

EQUITY FOR NEW HIGH SCHOOLS IN LOWER MERION

In June 2004, the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) appointed by the Lower Merion school board issued a report recommending construction of two new high schools for the district.  These schools,  to be constructed on the sites of the existing Harriton and Lower Merion buildings, were to have equal student populations (1,250 each), and equal facilities.

Designs for the two schools, by DWKCB Architects, needed to be slightly different, due to fitting them into difficult sites for construction while the existing buildings are still in use.  As it happened, problems at Harriton were resolved before those at Lower Merion, because of the time delay in moving 80 school buses and the maintenance garage from the Lower Merion property.  The board elected to proceed with Harriton, and final design is now underway, with construction scheduled to begin next summer.

Original projected cost for the two schools was approximately $150 million.  However, two developments over this summer have raised alarm over the financing.  On August 28, the school board voted a "not-to-exceed" budget of $98.25 million for Harriton alone.  Meanwhile, the State Legislature passed Act 1, the Taxpayer Relief Act, which requires school boards to hold a referendum on any expenditures exceeding an index calculated by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.  This means that funding for Lower Merion will have to be voted on by an electorate already upset by escalating tax rates.  There is a real possibility that a referendum would be defeated, and Lower Merion not be built.

The League is concerned that having only one of the new schools built would cause severe problems of inequality within the district.  We believe that the Lower Merion school board must find a way to guarantee to the public that this will not happen.  It may require scaling back the size and cost of the project, but it must be done to preserve equity between the two schools.  And it must be decided before contracts are let for building Harriton.                                                                                           

Alison Graham, December 8, 2006