Edgewood to be special ed school
POTTSTOWN » Having considered the former Edgewood Elementary School building as a fifth-grade center and a kindergarten center, the Pottstown School District is now pursuing a third option for the building.
Thursday night, the school board voted to approve a letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Education indicating that the building will now be used — at least partially — as a special education center.
That’s what the building is used for now, except the occupants are tenants.
The Montgomery County Intermediate Unit operates special education programs for younger students in some classrooms.
The other classrooms are occupied by a special education program for older students called Cottage 7.
The school board has decided against renewing the lease for Cottage 7 and instead, operating special education classes there for students in the fourth through seventh grades, according to Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez.
“We’re not opening 15 classrooms. It’s not going to be a humongous special education center, Rodriguez explained.
“Our target is to open three classrooms by the fall, which is an ambitious, but reasonable target,” Rodriguez said.
When the district was holding town hall meetings about the future of Edgewood, there was often a $6 million price tag for building repairs that gave many of the school board members pause.
But there is no such price tag to open three classrooms in a building that is already being used, said Rodriguez.
“If you’re going to open a building to 300 kids, that changes the ball game,” he explained. But opening the building for a few classrooms at a time allows the district to do repairs and upgrades “piecemeal,” he said.
“We can patch things together to keep it going,” Rodriguez said.
The move is in keeping with a philosophy the district has lived by for years, bringing special education students back into the district.
“We do it whenever we can say for sure that it’s closer, better and cheaper,” Rodriguez said.
The students the district intends to teach at Edgewood have “higher levels of disability,” said Rodriguez. “Some need emotional support, some are autistic
And while younger special education students will be taught in the Edgewood building, older spe