EBENSBURG, Pa. – After months of anticipation, the Central Cambria School District board on Monday unveiled the results of a building feasibility study that examined enrollment projections and the necessity of operating two elementary schools.
The findings were shared during the board’s committee meeting by two architects from Pittsburgh-area firm DRAW Collective, which was hired in November to conduct the study.
Principal architect Cassandra Renninger and associate architect Tricia Monaco presented two possible scenarios.
Under scenario “A,” all grades, kindergarten through fifth, from the district’s two elementary schools – Jackson Elementary School in Jackson Township and Cambria Elementary School in the Ebensburg area – would be merged at the Cambria Elementary School building.
Scenario “B” would include a stepped transition – starting with third through fifth grades merging at Cambria Elementary School, and possibly merging all elementary grades at that building later.
“Both scenarios ‘A’ and ‘B’ are viable,” Renninger said, “but one of the things about scenario ‘B’ that we like is the fact that the stepped transition offers the most flexibility in terms of when the second step of the consolidation would happen.”
She said that since the district’s rate of enrollment decline may differ from projections, the stepped transition would allow time to react to actual changes