Recently, the North Schuylkill class of 1969 celebrated its 50th reunion.. the class gathered to commend each other on successes, lament failures.. and laugh long into the darkness of the night as the band played on..
The class of 69’s yearbook was passed around for reunion-gatherers to relive memories and emotions.. But on the front few pages of the yearbook was a hopeful image: The way the school was set to look!
It was not at all like the North Schuylkill high school that exists today..
The page showcases a modern design, buildings that seemed to be connected by outside walkways.. what appeared to be a large state of the art gym.. It looked more like a college campus of learning as opposed to a typical brick high school..
And the other side of the 1969 yearbook stated that this was the proposed North Schuylkill to be..
But it was not the North Schuylkill that would become, as history showed..
Eventually in 1976, the new school would be completed.. but the series of debates and setbacks littered newspapers at the time from the summer of 69 through the final ribbon cutting.
Already when the yearbooks were published and handed out that year to the graduating students, front page local headlines blared the price tag of the new building: $8.1 mil!! The April 1969 Evening HERALD reported on rising construction costs and project delays already .. At that time NS was one of the largest districts in the entire state.
Opinions at that time were not easily shared online as they are today, but instead people took the to fishwrapper to espouse their points of view.. They did that the day after the April 29 1969 article appeared in the HERALD.. a letter to the editor of the paper the day after from ‘Hopeful for 72’ wrote about new drawings being selected by the board. The letter read, in part,
Does this mean that architects must submit new designs for the new school?
What happened to the original drawings?
What about the costs of the original drawings and the special schematic pictures and diagrams of the layout that were made?
Already there was trouble.. The letter concluded, “The vacuum of veracity which seems to exist can only be termed a credibility gap.”
By December 1970 the HERALD was calling it the year of the tax paper rebellion.
Taxpayers across various districts began recoiling at tax increases and building costs for construction.. North Schuylkill’s issues were front and center and took the main spotlight..
December also began a series of meetings held in the Ashland North Schuylkill location, included with attendees was a Representative James Goodman..
More meetings would follow about possible reduction costs of the school..
By January 1971, a group called the Taxpayers Association began challenging the building plans that North Schuylkill was presenting.. further studies would begin getting conducted to reduce costs..
Clarification was made in February of 71 that the new building would only be $6 mil.. but the total package with the highway upgrades would bring the project to the $8+ mil that had become so controversial..
By the end of 71, the angry taxpayers won seats in the November election cycle. They won on a ticket of reducing costs and a slogan of “Let’s get the job done!”
Action finally began to occur in September 1972 when the North Schuylkill school board voted 7 to 1 to build the new school and employer the firm of Gilboy, Stauffer, Giombetti, Skibinski and Davies from Clarkes Summit—a major firm at that time. The negative vote: Rev William Hartman.. Hartman’s viewpoint was that the firm only created one school.. he said there were better architects that should have been considered.
At this point the plans changed.. those amazing drawings that appeared in the 1969 yearbook were history.. no more walkways.. no more circular buildings and vast amount of sunlit rooms.. This new taxpayer-angered era brought us a new style.. as the December 8, 1972 REPUBLICAN HERALD reported, a flatter style..
The architects took advantage of a hilly 199 acre near Cardinal Brennan High School to design a compact building which Chaffee said would make the school as practical and functional as possible from an education viewpoint.
The school will institute 30 open-space classrooms divided into three four and three six-open-space areas on the second floor in the quiet area of the split-level, two-story school.
Students, they promised, would have ‘time saving’ days due to the ‘compactness’ of the school..
While the school was being completed, a “Crash! Bang! Crunch!” moment occurred on the streets of Ashland Pennsylvania..
June 1974’s graduating class was so excited about leaving high school that they had multiple motor vehicle accidents around the town.. within twenty-five minutes, the HERALD reported that “Ashland police were hard-pressed in their investigative procedures” due to the number of accidents that were occurring.. No injuries.. just mishaps amidst celebrations..
Also occurring was another delay.. the extension of the completion date of the school.. Nothing pertaining to safety issues, but rather yet more construction delays..
By June 7, 1976, a new school was finally dedicated. The final location and design looked a world of difference between that magical 1969 promise that appeared in the yearbook.. But what existed was something practical.. The school was able to brag an ‘olympic sized pool,’ a gym that could seat 1804 people, a greenhouse, and a 900-seat cafeteria (something much smaller than an original plan featuring a 2000-set room) …. Electric heat and air conditioning was a modern staple of the decade, and became a fixture in the school..
The final cost: $8.4 million–a few dollars higher than the original concept that was estimated at $8.1 mil..
Hindsight in the lens of history is 20/20… it’s simple to say that the first design would have been a marvelous cutting edge campus.. it’s difficult to say how much it would have cost if the original design was kept.
But that original design was sure beautiful.. Wasn’t it?
Today North Schuylkill School District has 1,891 students in grades K-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 13 to 1.
The school has a new synthetic turf as of 2019.. No more mud bowls.. (Though mud bowls have been a standard of Friday night lights in the coal region for decades).
According to state test scores, 35% of students are at least proficient in math and 56% in reading..
And it has a flat, condensed building. No walkways.. And that 70s feel thanks to years of history back before any students of today were born.
