FAYETTE COUNTY, Pa. — In a video given to Channel 11, you can hear and see students at Franklin Elementary School grades K-6 chanting, “save our school” after their Christmas program.
Cody Martin’s son was one of those kids.
“At the end of their Christmas program, completely unsolicited, our kids just started chanting ‘save our school, save our school,’ and as a dad, as a parent, it’s important to me that we do everything we can to do that,” Martin said.
Uniontown School District currently has six elementary schools. Two near the mountains, three near the city and Franklin in the valley. Parents are worried that, if Franklin closes, their kids will be faced with longer bus rides and larger class sizes.
Kim Spring said she looked into the enrollment at the next closest elementary school.
“When I had spoken to somebody, they had said that the classroom sizes at Menallen were already pushing 30 kids,” she said.
In March, the school board voted to close AJ McMullen Middle School.
“A lot of that community feels like it fell on deaf ears, and here we are 9 months later talking about another closure of a school,” Martin said. “And I don’t even know that we have proven that the first closure was worth doing.”
Franklin holds just over 100 students, and parents say they are concerned about the community they’ve already built at their school.
“It just broke my heart,” Springer said. “It’s not just a school, it’s a family.”
Uniontown School District has not responded to our request for comment. A public forum was held Thursday night at the high school to hear from Franklin parents. An official decision on the school will be made in March.
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