The State College Area school board will be staying put, at least for now.
With a 5-3 vote, board members decided Monday to keep their meeting venue at the district administration building, 131 W. Nittany Ave., and not move it temporarily to the State College municipal building, 243 S. Allen St.
Members Penni Fishbaine, David Hutchison, Jim Leous, Jim Pawelczyk and Gowen Roper voted to keep using the current location. Dorothea Stahl, Richard Bartnik and Chris Small favored the borough building. Ann McGlaughlin, the board president, was absent.
‘This board has a job of serving the school district. We lead by serving the school district,’ Pawelczyk said. ‘In my mind, that is done by being as connected to the school district as we possibly can. … A district facility is definitely my preference as we go forward.’
Other board members, however, have expressed concerns about the current venue’s accessibility, particularly to the handicapped. Stahl especially has advocated for a change in location, helping to prompt a board subcommittee to study the idea earlier this summer.
At the board meeting Monday, she noted that handicapped-accessible parking at the Nittany Avenue building is far removed from the handicapped-accessible front door. Plus, Stahl said, a doorbell that could assist the handicapped is at the opposite end of the building.
District solicitor Scott Etter said bathroom access at the building could cause a legal complication if the district were to be challenged. Bathrooms are on the basement level, one floor below the board’s meeting room. The only way to reach them is to take a staircase.
‘When we have three- to four-hour meetings … I think that would potentially create an issue’ from a legal perspective, Etter said.
Stahl was more forceful in her analysis.
‘We’re not ADA-compliant,’ she said. ‘ … We either need to rectify those problems, or we need to accept the fact that we don’t really want to make the changes, to make sure that anyone in this district can show up and speak live at one of our meetings.’
Small appeared to agree. ‘For me as an elected official, the (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessibility is an issue,’ he said.
Other complaints about the Nittany Avenue venue range from temperature — it’s often uncomfortably hot — to space limitations. At times, visitors are forced to gather in a hallway outside the meeting room there.
The building itself, opened in 1924, was a grammar school in a past life.
Last week, to try out a potential short-term venue, the school board hosted a work session on the third floor of the borough building. Members met in the same high-ceiling meeting room where Borough Council holds its regular gatherings.
Like the Nittany Avenue building, the borough facility is equipped to distribute live television coverage of public meetings. (All school-board meetings are carried live on C-NET.) Unlike the Nittany Avenue building, it has elevators and accessible public bathrooms on each floor.
But school-board members had mixed impressions of the borough’s meeting space. Hutchison said the room is so big, and the attending parties so far spread out, that it inhibits nonverbal communication, such as eye contact and body language.
He also didn’t enjoy sitting ‘like a Roman emperor … with subjects down below,’ Hutchison said. Elected officials sit on a raised platform in the borough meeting space.
Leous aired a similar concern. And, he said, ‘I think it’s important that our venue reflect the culture of what we do. And what we do is educate students.’
He said he appreciates that board’s current venue is decorated with student artwork, awards and other reflections of school life.
Right now, the Nittany Avenue location is the sole school-district-owned venue that’s equipped for live TV coverage on C-NET. As the district continues to improve its facilities overall, the board may have an opportunity to build the live-TV capability into a newer school facility, then relocate its meetings there, Fishbaine said.
She said the board should be proactive in looking at that option.
Meanwhile, Leous suggested that the district staff look into how the Nittany Avenue building might be made more handicapped-accessible — and at what cost. Findings are expected to return to the board.
Earlier coverage
