East Mountain<\/a>.<\/p>\nSchool Board President Tom Borthwick says the decision comes as the district looks to address its growing special education needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticularly, the autistic and special needs population has been growing,” said Borthwick. “This year alone, we added 11 autistic support classes. Last year, I believe the number was 16, so in two years, you\u2019ve seen explosive growth. This has necessitated our efforts to find new space.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking with Newswatch 16 at the district\u2019s administrative office, Borthwick says the building will be purchased for $ 2.5 million.<\/p>\n
He says the former Friendship House facility will be an easy transition for the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ability to get a building that already did what we needed it to do means that whatever kind of investment we need to put into the building will be a lot better than doing something from the ground up,\u201d said Borthwick.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Dr. Erin Keating spoke with Newswatch 16 over the phone.<\/p>\n
She says the move will not cut any special education programs and will build on what the district already has in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are very strict regulations under Chapter 14 that look at how many students, based upon their disability, can be in a classroom. So we need to make sure that all of our classrooms are equipped the right way to meet those full-time classroom supports to give kids exactly what they need,\u201d said Keating.<\/p>\n
Borthwick says the turnkey building should be ready to welcome students come next school year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are equipped a lot better than smaller districts to handle the needs of these students,” said Keating. “So it makes sense if you\u2019re a parent and you want to make sure that your child has the best, you come to a district that\u2019s equipped for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sale of the Friendship House is expected to be finalized sometime next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Friendship House on East Mountain will now be a part of the district’s Monticello Program. SCRANTON,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-74048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-scranton","9":"tag-scranton-headlines","10":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74048","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=74048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}