Discussions of Blairsville schools splitting with Saltsburg and merging instead with Homer-Center dominated Tuesday night’s Blairsville-Saltsburg school board meeting.
Board member Rick Harper proposed the idea of Blairsville merging with Homer-Center to prompt discussion on the redistricting of some of the county’s schools. While redistricting would ultimately be decided at the state level, Harper said he would like to see the districts begin discussions sooner than later, citing House legislation that supports minimizing the number of school districts in the state.
Harper, Molly Stiles, Holly Gibson, and Anthony Canzano voted in favor of the idea, and in favor of Harper, Stiles, and Gibson representing Blairsville-Saltsburg in would-be discussions with Homer-Center. Both items were outvoted 5-4 and failed to pass.
Subsequently, the board voted 5-4 in favor of making a declaration in support of status quo and maintaining the state of the school district. The declaration was made after some months of requests to do so by the Petrarca Committee, and also at the request of a representative of Save Our Saltsburg Schools. Once more, the majority votes were cast by board president Beverly Caranese, vice president Marlene Joyce, Holly Hall, Linda Brown, and Michael Bartolini.
When asked what the next step would be for those who support the idea of a Blairsville-Homer merging, Harper suggested he did not need board approval to move forward with discussions:
“Well, next– first step is we have to go in front of Homer-Center. It could all die right there. If they say ‘No, we’re not interested,’ then they got their status quo. But if Homer-Center says they’re interested, then we’ll begin– we’ll get a small army of people together to start collecting signatures.”
In other news, the board approved the hiring of Angela Mellinger as new business manager, pending clearances.
