7/30/2019 5-9-13 Letter to LMSD Families Regarding May 13 Board
Meeting-Enrollment Growth
1/2
Lower Merion School District
301 East Montgomery Ave. Ardmore, PA 19003-3399Phone:
610-645-1930 Fax: 610-645-0703www.lmsd.org
Christopher McGinley, Ed.D. Superintendent of Schools
May 9, 2013
Dear Parents/Guardians,
I write to you this evening to remind you about the Monday, May
13th Board of School Directors
meeting to discuss high school enrollment issues and the
proposal to expand the Lower Merion High
School choice area. The choice area is the area in which
students who attend Welsh Valley Middle
School have the option of attending Lower Merion High School
instead of Harriton High School. The
meeting will begin at 8:00 PM in the Lower Merion High School
auditorium.
Since November 2011 we have been discussing the increase in
student enrollment in public SchoolBoard meetings. In the fall we
began focusing on how we can accommodate the growing number of
students in our elementary and middle schools. These discussions
led to an approval of plans for
additional classrooms at Gladwyne, Penn Valley, Welsh Valley and
Bala Cynwyd. Information from
previous meetings, presentations and studies about student
enrollment growth can be found on the
Districts website at www.lmsd.org.
In the course of public discussions, members of the Board of
School Directors raised questions about
how we will be able to accommodate the increasing number of
students expected to attend our two
high schools. The two high schools were each built to serve
about 1250 students. Through creative
scheduling, we expect to accommodate closer to 1400 students.
Our high school population is
projected to exceed the estimated combined capacity of the two
schools (about 2800 students) by just
over 400 students. Under current enrollment patterns both Lower
Merion and Harriton will need
additional classroom space. Issues like traffic, parking, bus
travel times and the utilization of common
areas like the cafeteria will need to be addressed at both high
schools as well. The projected student
population growth is not what had been anticipated when the
District sought approval to build the
new high schools more than seven years ago.
At Harriton, additional classrooms would be required to
accommodate forecasted growth. Lower
Merion is in a better position to accommodate growth because
there are classrooms available in the
old "A Building" which houses the Downs Gym. This portion of the
building is currently in use by Lower
Merion students and there are 16 classrooms available for future
use. Based on current enrollmentprojections, Lower Merion will
begin holding academic classes in the "A Building" in September
2015.
In an attempt to utilize the existing space at Lower Merion and
avoid or delay constructing additional
classrooms at Harriton, there has been discussion in several
recent meetings about changing the size
of the Lower Merion choice area. Students leaving Welsh Valley
for high school who live closest to
Lower Merion have the option of continuing to Harriton with
their peers or electing to attend Lower
Merion. Currently about 80 students each year have this option.
The proposal being discussed on
Monday would afford about fifty additional students each year
the option of selecting Lower Merion.
(All students who attend Bala Cynwyd currently have the option
of electing Harriton for high school.)
