Three Schuylkill County school districts have submitted bids to Saint Clair Area School District to accept its incoming high school students.
Pottsville Area, Schuylkill Haven Area, and North Schuylkill school districts responded to Saint Clair’s Request for Proposals (RFP) it approved in June. The responses were received at the Sept. 2 deadline.
Saint Clair Area Superintendent Thomas McLaughlin said that school board members have not received copies of the proposals from the three schools, as of the conclusion of Wednesday’s school board meeting.
When Saint Clair Area put out an RFP similar to the one this year about a decade ago, the same school districts responded.
According to board president Michael Holobetz, Saint Clair plans to conduct public presentations at each of the three schools that submitted proposals during the month of September and host a town hall to discuss those proposals before a final decision is made. He wants Saint Clair to make a final decision sometime in November.
Holobetz said that Schuylkill Haven and North Schuylkill have requested the opportunity to make presentations of their schools and Saint Clair is hoping Pottsville does the same.
How We Got Here
Saint Clair school board members approved an RFP in June to seek a potential new partner district where they could send graduating eighth grade students. Since 1989, Saint Clair Area students have mostly finished their secondary education at Pottsville Area High School.
However, in recent years, negotiations on a long-term deal between the schools have stalled.
Earlier this year, Saint Clair officials – as they weighed the possibility of potentially restarting its own high school, renewing an agreement with Pottsville, or finding a new high school partner district – said Pottsville was only interested in a long-term deal that charged a flat fee tuition or one that forced a merger of the two districts.
Saint Clair wants a per-student tuition arrangement and does not want a merger with Pottsville Area.
Holobetz said Wednesday he got the impression during the last round of negotiations in 2024 that Pottsville board members wanted a merger.
“During the negotiations, it kind of devolved into basically their board member made the statement either merge or we’re not going to give a long-term agreement,” Holobetz said. “We came out of that meeting with the impression that they basically were giving an ultimatum to merge or look elsewhere.”
Recently, Pottsville board member Stephanie Buchanan, in a public presentation, said that Saint Clair officials were not being entirely truthful with the public regarding the nature of those negotiations or the financial arrangement the schools have had in the past.
She said Pottsville did offer a discounted per-student tuition possibility among three options presented to Saint Clair during its last round of negotiations. However, Holobetz said Pottsville was using a tuition formula for cyber schools to come up with its rate to charge Saint Clair.
Despite the apparent lukewarm nature of the ongoing relationship between the districts, Pottsville remains “as viable a candidate as anyone,” Holobetz said Wednesday.
FULL COVERAGE:
Pottsville School Officials Say Saint Clair Isn’t Being Truthful About Tuition Talks
Pottsville Responds to Saint Clair School Seeking Proposals from Other High Schools in Schuylkill
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