During its meeting on August 5, the Kutztown School Board authorized and directed the appropriate officials to enter into a contract to purchase the district administration building at 251 Long Lane in Maxatawny for the price of $1,750,000.

“We are excited about the opportunity to move into the next phase of district administration. We have almost completely moved into the middle school,” said Kutztown Superintendent Christian Temchatin.

“It’s a long way from a purchase agreement to a final agreement. There are many steps in real estate. This is something I brought to the board about a year ago,” he said. “I am grateful for the board’s support in planning the sale of the county administration office to streamline operations.”

The Kutztown community also provided feedback on the proposal to potentially create back-to-back schools to better serve students while providing operating cost savings for the district.

Community members had the opportunity to answer some questions and provide their comments via an online survey.

Temchatin presented data compiled through the online survey on the three elementary configuration models discussed at the July 15 meeting.

Model one: a K-1 building at Greenwhich Elementary and 2-5 at Kutztown Elementary.

Model two: a K-2 building at Greenwich Elementary and 3-5 at Kutztown Elementary.

Model three: a K-5 building at Kutztown Elementary, eliminating Greenwich Elementary.

Of the 107 responses, 0.3% did not select a preferred model, and 20.4% wanted to maintain the status quo or make no changes, while 13% chose model two and 1.9% chose model one, and 4% chose model one or two.

Model three with K-5 complete building was the most popular choice at 50.9%, Temchatin said.

Participating community members also expressed their views on the opportunities associated with their model choice.

“The most common emphasis was on students being able to grow together or that there would be unity in the school district starting in kindergarten in each of the models,” Temchantin said. “In each of the models, there was a positive opportunity for collaboration among staff because there was collaboration at the grade level.”

Temchantin said model three, which includes all students in grades K-5 at Kutztown Elementary, clearly has lower operating costs because there is one less building.

“The idea of ​​a campus and coordinated services in model three was also mentioned very specifically as a very common response,” he said.

Concerns raised in feedback included larger class sizes for model three, but Temchatin said class sizes will be 20 students in grades K-3 and up to 25 students in fourth and fifth grades.

The biggest challenges cited in feedback were transportation time and impact on sleep for all three models. Other challenges raised by the community included cost, population growth north of I-78, families with students in multiple buildings, and construction timelines.

“I’m grateful to the people who took the time. It actually took time and that was intentional. We’re trying not to make it a yes/no scale because I wanted data that would be useful for planning and preparing in the future, not just an opinion poll,” Temchatin said. “I really appreciate people taking the time to give us 107 responses.”

Community members will continue to have the opportunity to comment online through the district’s website, which will be reviewed regularly.

In other news, the board approved the music cooperation agreement between KASD and Brandywine Heights for marching bands at football games.

“It’s the same as last year. It’s students from Kutztown and Brandywine competing on the football field, and (band director) Dustin Shirk was excited to have the Brandywine students as the marching band,” Temchatin said.

The board also approved the cooperation agreement between KASD and Muhlenberg School District for water polo for boys and girls.

“We had a small number of students expressing interest in water polo and wondering if they would play water polo in partnership with Muhlenberg, and just recently Muhlenberg said they were open to it, hence the agreement,” Temchatin said. “We can always expand the opportunities … for some of our students.”

The Kutztown School District does not have a swimming pool. Temchatin noted that the district already has a number of swimmers who provide their own transportation for swim meets, so he did not anticipate having to arrange his own transportation for water polo.

At the time, Temchatin said the agreement would have resulted in little or no cost to the Kutztown School District.