Abington School District Will Undergo Grade Reconfiguration In 2022-23 School Year

ABINGTON, PA — Starting in the 2022-23 school year, the nine schools within the Abington School District will be reconfigured with regard to the respective grades they serve, the district announced this week.

The grade reconfiguration plan, a portion of which was presented to Abington's school board on Tuesday, is timed around the completion of an additions and renovations project at Abington Senior High School, Superintendent Jeffrey S. Fecher told the community in an online announcement.

Starting in 2022, ninth grade students will move over to the high school, which currently only serves grades 10 through 12. Part of the plan will also be the transfer of sixth grade students to Abington Junior High School, which now serves grades seven through nine, according to the announcement.

The district says the move will free up classroom space throughout Abington's seven elementary schools, which currently serve kindergartners through sixth graders. Under the new plan, elementary schools will house students in kindergarten through fifth grade instead.

The plan stems from projected school enrollment growth, according to the district.

The district said the shift will also impact a number of teachers and staff, and the Office of Human Resources is currently working to move around positions accordingly. This would mostly involve moving some faculty from the elementary to the secondary level in accordance with their teaching certifications, according to the community announcement.

The district says that plans for the reconfiguration date back to 2017 with the formation of a Superintendent's Committee regarding Secondary Programming for Reconfigured Grade Spans, first addressing the middle and high school, and later the elementary level.

The district said next steps in the process include presenting elementary reconfiguration plans to the Board of School Directors during its Oct. 12 meeting. Administrators presented plans covering the middle and high school levels at the board meeting this past Tuesday.

"While I know these changes may bring a lot of questions from the families immediately impacted by the reconfiguration, please know that our subcommittees are working diligently on numerous resource materials, parent/guardian information events, celebratory rites of passage for students, and other initiatives to make the transition from this school year to the next as seamless as possible for our students," Fecher, the superintendent, wrote in his community announcement. "Please keep an eye out for additional information in the months ahead."