CLEARFIELD – On Monday night, the Clearfield school board approved for the Harmony Area School District to withdraw as a sending district to the Clearfield County Career & Technology Center.
Last week, board members were presented with Harmony’s amended withdrawal request. District officials previously requested for Harmony’s withdrawal to be effective at the end of this school year and to be granted a 10-year payment plan for their financial buy-out obligation.
That request was denied by the other sending districts, including Clearfield. Since then, Harmony officials have amended their request to be effective at the end of the 2017-18 school year pending satisfactory completion of all financial obligations.
According to previously-published GANT News reports, Harmony’s withdrawal must be approved by the five sending districts – Clearfield, Curwensville, Moshannon Valley, West Branch and Philipsburg-Osceola.
When asked in a previous meeting about Harmony’s financial obligation, Struble explained that it was tied to a CCCTC bond issue and the district (Harmony) had hired counsel to calculate its share with interest growth over time.
Student-wise, Harmony sends about 10-15 students to the CCCTC annually. The withdrawal’s impact on the general operating budget isn’t as much of a concern because it can be absorbed, according to Struble.
“It’s just about how we take care of the long-term obligation,” Struble said during previous board discussion. “We want to make sure we protect the five remaining schools and the CCCTC.”
Harmony’s school district officials are currently seeking a closer alternative for career and technical education for their students.
At a previous board meeting, Struble said Harmony students have about an hour bus ride to the CCCTC and then back. Some have to travel into Harmony to get the bus.
“Some of those kids have two hours tied up on a bus before they even step inside a school,” he said. “They are looking at Admiral Perry (Area Vocational Technical School). It’s about 36 minutes from the school.
“… We get the whole process educationally and what they are looking at doing. We just have to protect everyone else on the financial end of it.”
