Echo Pilot
The Greencastle-Antrim School Board is scheduled to decide next week how to close the $867,157 gap between revenues and expenditures in the 2021-22 budget.
The board is expected to approve the final budget during a meeting beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 17, in the high school library. Members of the public can attend the meeting in person and it also can be viewed on YouTube, accessible from the school district website.
The finance committee is recommending a 2.5% property tax increase and taking $250,000 from capital reserves to make up most of the difference between $44,272,428 in projected revenues and $45,139,585 in projected expenditures, according to committee member Tracy Baer.
Echo Pilot
The doors to the Greencastle-Antrim High School auditorium are being cracked open a year into the COVID-19 pandemic.
The auditorium had been basically off-limits, but it is being opened on a limited basis to district students, families and staff based on the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Dr. Lura Hanks, superintendent, said at the April 1 school board meeting.
Hanks also talked about outdoor activities in a brief spring health and safety update.
In the auditorium
The district wants to provide band, music and theater students the same opportunities that student-athletes have had as many sports resumed during the pandemic.
The board voted 7-2 in favor of Hanks recommendation.
Board member Tracy Baer, who voted no along with Lindsey Mowen, said she thinks the competency-based calendar is moving in a good direction, but she s not sure the kids, parents, community and teaching staff are ready for it year.
After a year of COVID-19, she feels they just want to go back to normal and are tired of change.
Virtual Wednesdays are one change that was in the cross-hairs of many parents who responded to a survey about how the district is doing after its latest drop anchor day in February.