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District facing last bell
Oct. 11, 2000: State declares Duquesne Schools financially distressed. The designation means a three-member Board of Control will be appointed to run the district. The district missed bond payments that year totaling $1.4 million. At the time, the district had an enrollment of 1,031 students in three school buildings.
December 2000: The district submits a plan to the state for improving test scores.
Feb. 13, 2001: State Auditor General Bob Casey issues a scathing audit of Duquesne Schools, criticizing the district for gaps in credit card receipts for spending by top officials, $25,000 in spending on a trip by school officials to San Francisco and sloppy recordkeeping.
June 2001: The state approves Duquesne's plan to improve test scores and grants the district $526,000 to fund the plan. Duquesne is one of 12 districts statewide identified as "empowerment districts" because of low scores on the state's standardized Pennsylvania System of School Assessments test.
July 2003: A study by the Allegheny County Controller's office found the district, along with four others, to have violated the state's anti-windfall law by collecting 5 percent more in property tax revenue following the 2001 countywide reassessment.
May 2005: Nick Staresinic is ousted as chairman of Duquesne's state-appointed Board of Control amid the district's continuing academic and financial struggles. He had served in the position since 2000. State Education Department employee Shawn Farr appointed to the board.
Jan. 17, 2005: State Sen. Sean Logan, D-Monroeville, says he wants Duquesne High School students to be transferred to other schools. It would be the first step in closing the district. Enrollment has plunged to 750 students, with less than 40 students in the senior class.
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"We're kidding ourselves if we tell ourselves that that school district is going to remain a school district. The population is declining; the finances are in disarray," state Sen. Sean Logan, D-Monroeville, said Tuesday.
Logan, who represents Duquesne, is spearheading a push to close the district. He wants high school students to be sent to another district as tuition students next fall.
"I think he's on the right track," said Duquesne School Board President Mark Nemerovsky, a 1981 Duquesne graduate. "We're just not offering our kids the education they deserve ... It's a matter of economics at this point."
The Duquesne City School District, which has a $13 million budget, long has been plagued by financial problems. In 2000, the state declared Duquesne financially distressed and appointed a Board of Control to run the district.
"That was our last ray of shining hope and that's gone," Nemerovsky said.
The district remains financially and academically distressed. People are moving out of the district, and many property owners have not been paying taxes, he said.
Enrollment at the district's one-school campus has plunged from 1,031 five years ago to 750, with just 195 students in grades 9-12 and less than 40 in the senior class, Logan said.
During the last school year, 84 percent of the district's students received free or discounted lunch, a standard measure of poverty. Only Clairton City among the state's 501 districts had a higher percentage of students in the lunch program.
Officials say the Pittsburgh, McKeesport, West Mifflin, Woodland Hills and Steel Valley districts all have been asked to take Duquesne's high schoolers voluntarily.
Districts that take in Duquesne students would get its state and federal money and the state would offer other financial incentives, Logan said.
The state cannot force another district to accept the students and could not transfer all Duquesne students without legislative action to close the district.
McKeesport School Board member Wayne Washowich said the board has urged district Superintendent Patrick Risha to refuse transfers from Duquesne.
"Sure, they're throwing a lot of bones over this. Who knows what's going to happen when you get a new Legislature in? Those bones could be dropped," Washowich said.
"I don't think we can absorb any more kids in our system. I would never vote for it," he said.
Washowich said he was concerned about busing children across the Monongahela River.
"It's not a problem with their kids. It's just not conducive for us," he said.
West Mifflin Area officials also are opposed to accepting Duquesne students, board President Kathy Bracco said.
"It would be something the board and the administration and the community would have to discuss. There are a lot of people that were from Duquesne originally that now live in West Mifflin, but at this point our buildings are full and we wouldn't have room for any of the students," she said.
Nemerovsky said Duquesne's board approached West Mifflin and several other school districts several years ago about merging, but all refused.
While no decision has been made about whether Duquesne High School or the district should be closed, state officials are investigating other options for the students, Education Department spokesman Brian McDonald said.
"Nothing's been ruled out," he said.
The decision on whether Duquesne High School students should be transferred would be made by the state Board of Control with input from the department, McDonald said. No time frame has been set for making a decision, he said.
The Board of Control overseeing Duquesne is supposed to have three members but has two vacancies. Control board member Sean Farr, who is an Education Department employee, could not be reached for comment.
"I'll move legislatively to close the district" if the Education Department does not, Logan said.
Chester-Upland School District in Delaware County is the only other district currently operating under a Board of Control.
Duquesne is not the first area school district to fall under external control.
Woodland Hills was under court supervision for 12 years after being formed in 1981 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by parents charging area school districts with racial discrimination. Woodland Hills was formed out of the merger of the Churchill, Edgewood, Swissvale, Turtle Creek and General Braddock school districts.
Like Duquesne, Midland High School in Beaver County was facing plunging enrollment and a decimated tax base when it shut down in 1985. Students were bused to neighboring Beaver Area under a tuition deal that ended in 1994.
Midland students eventually found a new home across the state border -- four miles away at East Liverpool High School in Ohio.
Nemerovsky hopes to move Duquesne's high school students to another district so they can have a few years of a good education, a full spectrum of course and extracurricular offerings and, therefore, a better chance of going on to productive jobs or advanced educations.
"The parents are mixed," Nemerovsky said.
Some worry about a losing the high school's talented football and basketball teams, a source of pride through all the lean years in Duquesne. The football team finished as the PIAA Class A state runner-up last season.
Other parents, including Nemerovsky's sister, gave up on waiting for the district to improve and moved their children elsewhere, he said.
Carolyn Demery, whose children went to Duquesne schools and whose grandson enrolled this month in the eighth grade, said she would miss the district's renowned athletic program.
"They play sports very well and I would hate to see it go ... For a small town, we need something like that," said Demery, 61.
Still, she understands the state's interest in merging the district. Her grandson's homeroom only has 10 or 11 students.
"It's just not enough kids, I guess."
Nemerovsky, a lifelong resident who owns a business in the city, laments the need to close the district.
"I feel very sad and hurt. I know as a board member, there's nothing we can do."
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