Warren County School District Superintendent Gary Weber.

Over the last several months the Warren County School District Administration has been trying to sell the residents of the Western and Eastern attendance areas on the necessity to close Youngsville and Sheffield High Schools pinpointing a Qualified Zone Academy Bonds loan taken out on the Eisenhower campus a dozen years ago. The administration has also focused on the overall debt load on the district.

Former board member JD Daugherty even mentioned by email to the board how the western and eastern areas don’t pay their fair share of taxes when compared to northern and central attendance areas. I would contend we pay what we’re asked to pay based on the value of our homes.

Home value is a metric used to calculate tax owed to the district. The northern attendance area features the highest home value per owner occupied structure in the county. Pine Grove Township’s median home price is a whopping $178,000. Sugar Grove Township’s median home price is $161,000. Freehold Township chimes in at $134,000, Farmington at $139,000.

Add in median family income. Pine Grove again tops the list at $92,500 while the lowest median income in the north is in Sugar Grove Township at $59,000. Poverty rates for children 18 and under is generally 10% and much less. The high percentage of Amish in Freehold and Farmingtown townships skew northern numbers on the poverty rate when viewing statistics from the Census bureau.

Let’s compare that to the western area. Median home prices per owner occupied structure in Brokenstraw Township is $93,000, Pittsfield Township is $131,000, Eldred Township is 138,000, Youngsville Borough is $96,400, Tidioute Borough is $79,000. Median income in Brokenstraw is $48,000, Pittsfield is $70,000, Eldred $66,000, Youngsville $54,000 and Tidioute $40,000. Poverty rates for children under 18 top out at 42% in Deerfield Township, 23% in Pittsfield Township, 19% in Brokenstraw Township and 12% in Tidioute Borough.

Does anyone else see the discrepancies?

As you can well see, the children in the Western attendance area didn’t grow up in five bedroom $150,000 homes. The children on the western side of the county come from blue collar, put your hard hat on and get to work kind of families who live paycheck to paycheck trying to make ends meet. Take a drive through the western side of the county. Look at the structures.

We have our trailer parks, our double-wides, our single story ranch homes that are falling in but someone’s dream of a fixer-upper. We have small farms. We don’t have the Warren suburbs of Pine Grove Township where a fair portion of district administration, business owners from Warren and other upper crust folk reside and have the best of everything. 30% of Pine Grove Township residents have a bachelor’s degree. There is no township in the west that even tops 20% in that stat.

Why would this matter? Transportation becomes an issue. Each and every student in the Western Attendance area would endure no shorter than a 14 mile ride to Eisenhower. There is not one student that would have a shorter commute. If the tables were reversed, better than one-third of the students in the north would have a shorter ride to Youngsville. Parents with students participating in any after-school activities would have to figure on extra gas to pick those children up after practice or competitions, money that will certainly be coming out of those children’s mouths. In short, most children that would normally participate simply won’t because their families can’t endure the financial strain.

What about those children who have appointments to make? What’s an extra 36 mile round trip to Eisenhower to the wallet?

The district administration has masked this in an educational crusade trying to point out the number of courses that can be offered. Board members in favor of the move have been more genuine in their rebuttals stating monetary issues based on the Qualified Zone Academy Bonds. Board President Paul Mangione has stated flatly he wished renovations in the district would have been done in a different order. So why then would we not keep the most centrally located facility in the district open and maintained til the district can reinvest in a building that is vital to their long term strategy in the first place?

Here’s a suggestion to the district. Instead of appeasing the upper crust with a school six minutes away from their homes, how about we look at keeping the building in the neediest area of the school district open and functioning.

We have known for years this day would come. But now, more than ever, there must be full transparency in the administration. We’re tired of being fed falsehoods.

How about you for once give us the numbers and answers needed to make accurate assessments.

Hiding numbers from the FAQ because you have them labeled under a different subtitle is arrogance at its finest.

We may be the poorer lot of taxpayers on the western side of the county, that doesn’t mean we’re not educated. It means we don’t mind shoveling a lot of bull to get to the truth.

Dennis Myers is a Pittsfield resident.