This fall, the Octorara Area School District will reorganize its schools. Grades are being shifted, students reassigned, and one building—Octorara Elementary School—will be mostly shut down. It’s being called a “realignment.” Let’s be honest: this is building consolidation. And the truth is, if the school board had done this a decade ago when I first proposed it, Octorara wouldn’t be facing the financial mess it’s in now.
Here’s what’s happening:
- Grades 3 and 4 will move out of Octorara Elementary School (OES).
- Grades 3 through 5 will now be housed together in the Intermediate School.
- Grade 6 will move to the Middle School, forming a standard 6–8 model.
- OES will be used only for special programs like IU classes and YMCA before/after care—not as a full elementary school.
The district says this plan will save about $900,000 per year. It’s the right move—but it’s years too late.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
In 2003, the district commissioned a study that projected non-stop student growth. They claimed enrollment would rise well above 3,000 students by 2015. Based on that flawed forecast, the board moved ahead with building the Octorara Intermediate School—a large, expensive facility designed for growth that never came.
Those projections were wrong. Dead wrong.
Enrollment peaked at 2,687 students in 2004–05. Then it started dropping. And it never stopped. As of this year, Octorara has just a little over 2,050 students—nearly 32% fewer than what the district planned for when they built all that space.
And no, this is not because of charter schools. That’s an excuse.
The reality is this: young families are avoiding Octorara. They see the district’s high taxes and poor academic performance, and they choose to live elsewhere. Would you move into a district with one of the highest property tax rates in Chester County and inferior student outcomes?
Between 2013 and 2017, while I served on the board, I repeatedly raised the issue. I laid out the data on my blog, OctoraraTaxes.wordpress.com. I warned that we were operating and maintaining far more space than we needed. I showed how consolidation would save millions. I urged the board to act—not to hurt students, but to protect academic programs from future cuts.
I was ignored.
Board members scoffed at the idea. Some mocked me. Others dismissed my proposals as personal attacks or publicity stunts. I was accused of being negative, disruptive, even arrogant. One director flat out said, “We won’t even consider it.”
Now—eleven years later—they’re quietly adopting the exact plan they once called “unrealistic.” But it comes at a cost:
- $10 million in lost operating savings,
- $5 million in unnecessary capital improvements at OES,
- and $15 million total that could have gone to classrooms, technology, or debt relief.
That money is gone. Wasted. Taxpayers will never see it again.
Worse still, no one has taken responsibility. There’s been no apology. No explanation. Just a rebranding of what was once called “impossible” into a tidy little newsletter update.
Let’s be clear: This isn’t bold leadership. This is a quiet, reluctant cleanup.
And even now, there’s no sign that the board is ready to deal with the deeper truth: that Octorara’s struggles are self-inflicted. They chose big buildings over smart planning. They ignored enrollment data. And they built a tax structure that drives families away.
Here’s what Octorara needs moving forward:
- Transparency — Stop spinning language. If it’s consolidation, call it consolidation.
- Accountability — Board members who ignored reality for years should own their role.
- Real planning — No more expansions or new projects without honest population data.
- Focus on students — We can’t cut our way to success, but we also can’t waste money we don’t have.
I stood up when it mattered, and I told the truth. The facts were there. The trends were obvious. But the board chose image over reality, and Octorara’s taxpayers and students are still paying the price.
It didn’t have to be this way. But now, we’re stuck cleaning up the mess.
Timothy Alexander is a former member of the Octorara Area School Board of Directors and founder of MyChesCo.com. He maintained the blog OctoraraTaxes.wordpress.com, where he documented school finances and board decisions from 2013 to 2017.
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