Feb 21, 2014 3 min read

CARMICHAELS – Carmichaels Area School District Superintendent Craig Baily Friday clarified a couple of items that appeared in a Friday Observer-Reporter story regarding the Thursday night’s school board meeting.

Baily, who did not attend the meeting, said there appeared to be some confusion regarding the days necessary to reach the state Department of Education’s required 180-day school year without altering the scheduled graduation date of May 30.

Board members were under the impression the district had already exhausted all of its makeup days because of recent bad weather. It was even suggested an application to the Department of Education for a special exemption may be necessary.

Baily said none of this is a concern at present.

“If we don’t miss any more days, we are good,” Baily said, noting he will make June 2 an in-service day in the district. “In my 38 years in education, the weather was like this only one other time. In 1978, we were only in school for nine days in January. People petitioned the governor to get an exemption. He said, ‘No way, get the days in by June 30.'”

Another matter brought before the board dealt with a sign on school-owned property that will be removed during construction and replaced when construction is completed. Construction in this matter did not pertain to the district’s renovation project for the junior senior high school.

Baily said he understood the confusion and wanted to clear up the misunderstanding. The district owns a small piece of property along Route 88 that it leases to Keystone Posting for a billboard advertising Solomon Auto Group. That sign will be removed during replacement of the bridge on Route 88 that runs over Muddy Creek near the elementary center.

Both of these projects, the bridge replacement and the junior-senior high school renovation, are scheduled to begin at the conclusion of the current school year, Baily said.

“(The State Department of Treansportation) was going to shut down (this section of) Route 88 while they replaced the bridge. It (the old bridge) has to be removed in one piece,” Baily said.

The district and PennDOT came to an agreement to use the property where the billboard is located as a bypass for the bridge work so Route 88 will not have to be closed, Baily said.

The school board approved a six-year, $1,000 per year lease extension with Keystone Posting for a new billboard when the new bridge is open.

Baily called the bypass a “perfect solution to the problem” of detouring traffic a long distance.

Valerie Petersen, community relations coordinator for PennDOT, said the plans have not been finalized for the project but PennDOT is currently considering making the bypass a single lane with a traffic light on either end to direct the flow of traffic.

Peterson said PennDOT anticipates the project to replace the bridge will take four to five months to complete.