PLUMSTED – The Plumsted Township School District changed what grades are going to two elementary schools, and started new programs.
New Egypt Primary School principal Richard DeMarco in a May 12 letter to parents said that kindergarten and first-grade students would be moved to the Dr. Gerald H. Woehr Elementary School for the 2017-18 school year.
NEPS currently holds all district preschoolers, kindergartners and first-graders, as well as the before-school program, New Egypt Extended Day program. The tuition preschool program will remain at NEPS, located at 131 Evergreen Road.
NEPS employs five first-grade teachers and six kindergarten teachers.
DeMarco’s letter stated the reasons for the move as “declining student enrollment trends in the district, consolidating resources, and expanding services and programs in the primary school.”
District business administrator Sean Gately said in an email that one kindergarten class will be added next year “due to enrollment.”
Meanwhile, one half-time basic skills position was eliminated at the Woehr school. The realignment will not impact class sizes, he added.
On the Plumsted Board of Education’s May 10 agenda were two items that established new programs that would be housed at NEPS: Elementary Multiple Disabilities Program and an Early Childhood Multiple Disabilities Program.
“The district will accept out-of-district students placed by another school district – the program must be appropriate to meet the needs of the child’s disability,” Gately said. “The district program is available to preschool through elementary age children.” The programs will be integrated.
Primary and elementary school staff will be working from now until the start of the new school year to move supplies from NEPS to Woehr. The buildings, however, will not require any physical changes for the move.
While special education student enrollments have increased slightly over the past three years, overall enrollment in the district has dropped from 1,429 in October 2015 to an anticipated 1,383 this October.
