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McKeesport Area School District will kick off a district-wide realignment that consolidates students into five buildings, creates two new magnet programs and provides kindergarten through eighth grade students with either new or like new facilities for their education.

School directors approved the redistricting plan in February, which includes the establishment of two primary and intermediate school buildings for about 1,657 kindergarten through fifth grade students and the addition of a new sixth-grade academy to Founders' Hall Middle School.

The conceptual restructuring will be in place for the 2013-14 school year, although some students will be temporarily housed in alternate buildings and transferred to their permanent schools mid-year.

The district will launch magnet programs for kindergarten through fifth-grade students in both "schools within a school." The Academy of Math and Science will be located at the new Twin Rivers Primary/Intermediate School, scheduled to open in January 2014, while the Academy of World Languages will open in August 2014 at Francis McClure Primary/Intermediate School.

"It's been a long time coming," said Timothy Gabauer, district superintendent.

. . .

In February, Gabauer summarized school officials' lengthy analysis of redistricting plans, which began with a demographic study conducted in 2005.

After several additional studies and as many as two dozen variations of construction projects --- including cancelled plans to build a new $30 million elementary/intermediate school on the former Buck estate along Henderson Road --- the district in 2012 concluded that it need to address a projected decline in student population while replacing outdated, underutilized buildings.

According to Ryan Pierce, president and CEO of contracting firm JC Pierce LLC, none of the other options considered over the years adequately addressed the enrollment and demographic projections.

Officials eventually decided upon a final plan to condense the district from eight buildings into only five, and establish the "school within a school" concept in two buildings --- one "school within a school" housing kindergarten through second grades, the other third through fifth grades.

At each building, kindergarten through grade 2 and grades 3, 4 and 5 will share many facilities, but operate semi-independently. Grades 6, 7 and 8 would attend Founders' Hall.

. . .

The first of the new dual-purpose buildings, Francis McClure Primary-Intermediate School, will open in August 2013 for approximately 800 students from McKeesport's Wards 2 through 5, 8 and 12, White Oak and South Versailles Twp., or Coulter.

However, the new Twin Rivers Primary/Intermediate School, located at the site of the former Cornell Middle School where it broke ground in February, will not be ready until January 2014 for the 850 students from McKeesport's Wards 6, 7 and 9 through 11, Dravosburg and Versailles.

In the meantime, kindergarten through second-grade students will spend the first half of the year at the Centennial Elementary building, while grades three through five will move into the George Washington Elementary building.

. . .

The school board delayed choosing a name for the new primary school due to the large number of submissions they needed to review --- about 160, estimated public relations specialist Kirsten Giran.

School directors originally settled on John McKee Primary/Intermediate School earlier this month to honor the founder of McKeesport. But they called a special meeting last week to change the name after Keith Murphy, a member of the McKeesport Political African American Committee and the MASD Cultural Diversity Committee, raised concerns about the name because of historical reports that McKee was a slave-owner.

Due to these concerns, the board chose Twin Rivers Primary/Intermediate as a replacement name.

. . .

The new sixth-grade academy at Founder's Hall Middle School is scheduled to open in August 2014, but until then all sixth-grade students will spend the 2013-2014 school year at the White Oak Elementary building while the annex is being completed. Grades seven and eight will remain at Founder's Hall.

Gabauer said all three elementary school buildings will begin functioning under their new names at the start of the school year.

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