South Palmer school to open

PALMER — At least as far as the Borough Assembly is concerned, the new South Palmer Elementary will open on time.

But that’s not to say they didn’t have heartache about it.

Assemblywoman Michelle Church put a resolution on the agenda of Tuesday’s meeting to delay the opening for at least one year. In the end, the measure failed unanimously.

“I can certainly understand why Michelle Church wrote this resolution,” Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine said. “The only way we can talk about this as a body is if someone puts it before us and I think she was very brave to do so.’

The school is scheduled to open after the summer break. Teachers are already lined up to staff it. A principal has been selected.

In her comments on the issue, Church said the problem isn’t that the school isn’t ready but that the roads to get to it aren’t. The issue has been a tough one to resolve both for the assembly and for borough staff, prompting a lot of grim-faced meetings and testimony from nearby homeowners.

Building roads to the school site of the standard required for the traffic they’ll handle is an expensive proposition. There are roads built to get there but buses will take circuitous routes and surrounding residents have expressed concerns about their neighborhoods becoming a shortcut for parents picking up their children.

“The thought of not opening the school when it’s ready to go is insane,” Church said. “But so is not having access.”

A phalanx of parents and teachers set to become part of the new school’s community showed up at the meeting. During his testimony they flanked Thomas Lytle, the current principal of Tanaina Elementary School who will be principal at the new school. Lytle said delaying the opening would be a bad idea.

“It’s not good for kids to not open South Palmer Elementary,” he said.

Assemblyman Tom Kluberton asked about busing.

“What would you consider the longest reasonable amount of time that an elementary school-age kid should be on a bus in the morning?”

Lytle responded that busing times for the school are projected to be comparable to those of other borough schools, where the morning bus ride averages 50 to 55 minutes.

Bettine addressed her questions to the parents and teachers gathered around Lytle. She asked them about the long route the buses are set to take to avoid the nearby neighborhoods.

“You all will access the school that way too and not through the neighborhood?” she asked

They said they would.

“And how will you get the other parents to do that?” she asked.

Suggestions included educating the new parents and starting a word-of-mouth campaign to get them on board with the longer route.

Schools Superintendent George Troxel said that, from a cost standpoint, delaying the school opening wouldn’t save the district much. The schools from which the new school is drawing its student body would need to have portable classrooms brought in, which would likely cost $400,000.

Eventually, Church offered to withdraw her resolution but when that was ruled out of bounds she voted with the rest of the assembly to kill it.

But, she told everyone assembled, to sort out the access issue the borough is going to need help.

Holding up a map of the area, she said, “Call your legislators and ask them to give us the money to punch Trunk Road through.”

• Also at Tuesday’s meeting, a proposal from Bettine and Assemblyman Pete Houston to change the time of the assembly’s first meeting of the month failed unanimously.

The measure would have had the first Tuesday meeting of each month begin at 1 p.m., rather than the current time of 6 p.m.

Most who voted against the measure noted the difficulty the public would have in attending meetings if they had to take time off of work or the difficulty citizens in far-flung areas of the borough would have making it to Palmer on time for the meetings.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.