Old PVMS
BY SHAWN A. HESSINGER
Pottsville Republican
SUMMIT HILL — As heavy equipment labored in the background Wednesday, Panther Valley School officials and students gathered to formally announce the beginning of construction on the district's new $15,580,500 middle school.
Sixth-graders wearing hard hats and carrying shovels helped with a groundbreaking ceremony behind the existing high school for a project officially begun Dec. 30.
"We felt that would be appropriate since they will be one of the first classes in the new middle school," said Panther Valley School District Superintendent J. Christopher West.
Maintenance Director George Krajnak estimated the completed structure, located northeast of the high school, would take up an estimated 80,000 square feet just outside the borough of Lansford in rural Summit Hill.
West said work on the new middle school is expected to be completed in July or August of 2007.
"So we would be looking at occupying the new school by the 2007-08 school year," West said.
He said the new building will also include connected administration offices where West and the rest of the district's administrative staff will also relocate from the current middle school in downtown Lansford.
The new middle school project stirred some controversy in the Schuylkill County portion of the district.
In April 2003, the borough council of Coaldale, the only municipality within the school district to be located within the county, voted by narrow margins in a special meeting to study joining the Tamaqua Area School District instead.
The move to leave the school district, though short-lived, was motivated by concerns over the new middle school and the possible new taxes that could result.
In October 2003, the existing three-story Panther Valley Middle School was granted Keystone Opportunity Improvement Zone status, creating tax abatements to encourage economic development once the building is vacated.
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