Facing a critical need for classroom space, the Scranton School District may seize the former Penn Foster building by eminent domain.<\/p>\n
Directors voted Monday to authorize the acquisition of the property at 925 Oak St. in North Scranton through legal action for $2.2 million should the district be unable to negotiate a deal with the owner to purchase it.<\/p>\n
The vote was 7-2, according to a YouTube video of the meeting by ECTV. School Directors Catherine Fox and Carol Cleary voted no. School Directors Tom Borthwick, Danielle Chesek, Joe Brazil, Robert J. Casey, Jenna Eagen (Strzelecki), Marie Merkel and Joe Triano voted in favor of the measure.<\/p>\n
As a result of the vote, school district Solicitor Larry Moran Jr. may file a declaration of taking in the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas.<\/p>\n
The 85,000-square-foot building, which sits on about 16 acres, could be occupied about six months after it\u2019s purchased, district officials said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a unicorn in that it has those things, because we need all of it,\u201d Moran said at the meeting. \u201cThe building is perfect and there are no other similarly situated buildings that give us that answer to our need. We can\u2019t afford to not acquire this building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Government entities, like school districts, can take property from a private owner if it serves a legitimate public purpose, Moran said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re condemning the property but not like the city\u2019s license and inspection office would condemn it for being unsafe and uninhabitable,\u201d Moran said. \u201cWe\u2019re condemning it because we\u2019re taking it. I\u2019m also talking to the current owner of this property and we\u2019re trying to negotiate an acquisition conventionally. The constitution requires we pay just compensation. We offered $2.2 million, which is what the building owner\u2019s own appraisal said it\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n
925 Oak LLC purchased the property from Penn Foster LLC for $2.2 million in April 2024, according to a deed recorded in Lackawanna County.<\/p>\n
At the meeting, Erin Keating, Ed.D., superintendent of the Scranton School District, described the current situation as a \u201cdramatic space crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came into the district in April 2024, I was told our enrollment was dramatically shrinking, our cyber population was growing, and I had to close an additional one to two buildings,\u201d she said. \u201cSimultaneously to that, the board, upon my hiring, gave me as one of my goals a building reconfiguration plan due in December 2024. We have 57 autistic support classrooms, and we\u2019ve opened 8 to 10 school-based classrooms every year since I have come here. In addition, an enrollment predicted to drop under 8,800 or 8,700 students is holding steady at 9,200 students or more. Nobody saw the tidal wave that was coming at us in special education classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are out of room.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Scranton School Board voted in 2021 to close Bancroft Elementary, a decision brought up by Casey during the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat cut us down by 18 classrooms that we could be using now for cyber, special education or other educational purposes,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s now on our plate and we have to act. We have a building we can move into with very limited work and it suits all of our needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox expressed concerns about the process of acquiring the building, but recognized the need to accommodate students and teachers properly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not against acquiring Penn Foster because I understand it has things available that would be beneficial to us,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m well aware that land is a hot commodity in the city. I just don\u2019t think eminent domain is what we should be doing at this time. My vote will be no, just because I think it\u2019s setting a precedent. I understand we have space concerns, and I want to make sure all of our students and staff have places to go. I want to make sure we do things legally and the right way, because it\u2019s not my money. It\u2019s taxpayer money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facing a critical need for classroom space, the Scranton School District may seize the former Penn Foster building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[227,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-325117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-education","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}