Wyoming Area school officials discuss middle school plan

EXETER — The proposed creation of a sixth through eighth grade Wyoming Area Middle School within the Wyoming Area Secondary Center was discussed at a brief school board work-session meeting Tuesday.

Upon questioning from a local parent, Wyoming Area Superintendent Jon Pollard spoke in favor of the proposal as a change necessary for student performance.

“We’ve been doing the same things over and over for a long time and expected different results,” Pollard said. “So, now what we’re doing is we’re trying something different, because if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to keep getting what you always got.”

Walt Stevens, a Wyoming Area parent, said he appreciated efforts to keep special education students in-district, but questioned Wyoming Area’s emphasis on remedial education was coming at the expense of its honors curriculum. He said providing “little to no opportunity for advanced education” could drive more students to charter schools.

“There’s lots of mention of remedial,” Stevens said. “Is there anything about kids who need higher education, Advanced Placement classes, honors classes?”

Pollard said Wyoming Area has honors classes predominantly available in high school that students can access through success during middle school. He said there were honor-track middle school courses in seventh and eighth grade for mathematics classes; and in eighth grade for science classes, but not in English or social studies. Students can begin taking dual-enrollment courses as sophomores.

“We do have a lot of opportunities for advanced things in the high school years and (to be admitted) to those, you need to perform well in the middle school years,” Pollard said.

Pollard added that Wyoming Area prioritized remedial education to improve its state standardized testing scores, particularly the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment for students in third through eighth grades.

“Well, we need to concentrate on making sure that we’re passing the PSSAs,” Pollard said. “So, that energy is being placed in those areas.”

In 2025, 48.1% and 35.9% of Wyoming Area students taking the exam scored proficient or advanced on the PSSA English Language Arts and PSSA Mathematics exam, respectively. Both these proficiency rates were below the statewide averages, though they ranked as the third highest for language arts and fourth highest for math among school districts based in Luzerne County.

“We should be No. 1,” Pollard said when discussing scores after the meeting Wednesday.

Stevens also questioned whether students would be enthusiastic about the new branding that would come with the proposed consolidation. As part of the creation of the Wyoming Area Middle School, each grade is being given their own logo, while the middle-school wing as a whole will adopt the motto “find your path.” To retain students, Stevens argued the district needed to focus “more on the education, not the show.”

Pollard and several school board members also expressed confidence in the new branding that is part of the new middle school consolidation plan.

“I think so…they’re young kids,” Wyoming Area Board of Education member Kirby Kunkle said when asked whether students would be excited about the new logos. “Truly, I think if they’re having their own space, yes.”

“We’re looking at finding ways to excite children and make them want to be a part of the school,” Pollard added. “We need to make sure that our kids feel wanted.”

Pollard also contrasted Wyoming Area’s branding for the new middle school with what he and public school-district advocates have previously lambasted as the exorbitant marketing expenses of cyber charter schools.

“They’re taking the tax dollars that you’re paying to our taxes and they’re up-charging,” Pollard said. “We’re attempting to do things to make sure our children are feeling wanted and enjoy being at Wyoming Area to stop the exodus to…cyber charters.”

School district officials unveiled their proposal to create a Wyoming Area Middle School within the Wyoming Area Secondary Center at a virtual town hall last week. The proposal would have Wyoming Area sixth grade students attend the secondary center and join with seventh and eighth graders as part of a consolidated middle school. The change, school officials said during the presentation, was designed to help reduce costs amidst declining enrollment, largely via staff and faculty attrition. Savings could then be invested in internal special education programs that could help prevent students from being sent to costly out-of-district alternatives.

The creation of the middle school would be accompanied by a redesigned, seven-period school day, designed to increase instructional time and reduce study halls. That new schedule will facilitate the creation of  “Warriors in Need’ flex period” for individualized, remedial instruction based on state standardized test performance and internal district benchmarks. Teachers can also use the flex period to plan for how to address individual student performance.

“We need to do something to make sure that our kids are performing,” Pollard said. “And this is the strategy that we’ve taken on at this time.”

The Wyoming Area Board of Education must ratify the middle school proposal before it goes into effect.