By Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com

POTTSTOWN — "Are you the devil, sir?" That question — posed by resident Chris Lineman to Thomas Hylton, chairman of the school board's Neighborhood Schools Committee — was in many ways indicative of the kind of discussion to be had during a contentious meeting Wednesday night.

At the center of comments was Hylton, whose interaction with the district even before he was sworn in as a board member has drawn passionate reactions from board members and non-board members alike.

Lineman's comment drew guffaws from the audience and was not the first of the comments directed at Hylton during the three-hour meeting.

Hylton's proposal on which the meeting was called will save money when energy costs rise or bankrupt the town and force people out of their homes — depending on who you ask.

The plan is four-fold:

Move the fifth grade out of all five elementary schools and into the middle school where space is available;

Move the pre-K program in the schools, current enrollment of 111, out to the district partners who teach almost as many. These two things open up enough space to close the modular classrooms;

Close the administration building and move the offices into the high school, where space is available;

Use low-interest loans funded by federal stimulus to replace the aging heating systems in all five elementary schools with geo-thermal heating and cooling, along with new energy efficient lighting, low-flow toilets and energy-efficient windows at Edgewood and Rupert elementary schools.

Reaction to the proposals Wednesday night was, to be charitable, mixed.

"I'm not for your plan. All this is your plan to save Rupert," said resident Cynthia Wallace.

Built in 1929, it is the district's oldest building, an architectural stand-out and a building Hylton has advocated preserving.

"You want to save Rupert? buy it; you can have it, put up condos, I don't care. But don't put more money on us, the taxpayers," Wallace said.

Former board member Robert Morgan said during his time on the board Rupert was always described as a few steps away from falling down.

Doug Rohrbaugh, a principal in the Crabtree Rohrbaugh architecture firm, said from his examination, Rupert is structurally sound. "We have renovated buildings older (than Rupert) and torn down buildings that were not as old," he said.

"This is a community decision, and I'm lucky, I don't live here and I'm not part of the personality issues here, and there seem to be a lot of personal battles going on here," Rohrbaugh said. "It seems to me the question is, does the community want to spend $1.2 million to keep that building going for another 20 or 30 years?"

Morgan said Hylton's frequent citation of the election in which he and candidates he supported were elected on a platform of saving the neighborhood elementary schools misreads the message of the voters.

"What I saw was a rejection of building one large elementary school in the center of town," Morgan said.

Another former board member, Judyth Zahora, again asked where the board expected to find an additional $1 million a year for bond payments when the next year's budget is already expected to face a $1.8 million deficit.

She also angrily chided Hylton for espousing "revisionist history" by comparing the cost of his plan to the central campus plan's $40 million pricetag.

Phil Thees, also a former school board member, warned that rather than experiencing a recession, the nation is facing "another great depression" and said overburdened taxpayers could not afford the additional $108 per year the borrowing would add to their tax bill.

Stephanie Carmody, Herman Sims and Newstell Marable, president of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP, all said the board's focus should be on improving educational programs, not buildings.

Other board members and administrators also had their say.

"Mr. Hylton, you are not saving this town," said fellow board member Polly Weand, "you are destroying this entire community," a remark which drew applause.

"I hope the board members present are listening to the people who elected us. They are overwhelmingly against moving the fifth grade," said board member Julia Wilson.

Superintendent David Krem said he sent e-mails to all Pennsylvania superintendents asking them to relay their experiences and observations if they had schools with configurations of grades five to eight. He said he received 27 responses, and he characterized replies by saying that the configuration appeared successful in small schools or ones designed for fifth to eighth grades.

Standardized test scores dropped at four districts with that configuration, and the "fifth-graders did not fit socially or emotionally. Some became targets for bullying and inappropriate relationships," Krem said. "I'll leave you to interpret what inappropriate relationships means."

Director of Education Jeff Sparagana told the audience: "The middle school does have room to accommodate additional students; there is no question that it does."

How adding fifth-graders to the building would affect the educational program is still being evaluated. Noting that Middle School Principal Gail Cooper indicated the school could make eight rooms available, Sparagana said that would result in an average fifth-grade class size of 26.3. Current class size is 21 per classroom.

Although further examination is warranted, Sparagana said, "now we have something on the table that we can evaluate and collectively make a decision on what works best, so that's positive."

Assistant Superintendent Reed Lindley noted that "the community and the board are really struggling over this decision," but added the administration's job is to ensure "that the quality of education continues to improve."

The district, he said, must "spend money to have quality people, quality programs and quality facilities. The three components interact and it is a continual struggle in any community to decide how many eggs go in each basket."

There are issues, he said, "on which there will never be consensus. There is legitimate disagreement about things like grade level. Different people have different priorities.

"There are effective schools with every possible grade configuration," he added.

Whatever solution is settled upon, said Lindley, "it must be sustainable within the community's ability to pay."

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