One School Board

Townships Renounce Individual Boards

After May 28, 1964, the board finally took on the name and organization it carries today, the State College Area School District Board of Education.

Pennsylvania Act 299, the Reorganization Act of 1963, required each county (except Philadelphia county) to submit a school reorganization plan before July 1, 1964. The goal of the plan was to have administrative units of at least 4,000 pupils. This would reduce the state's 2,189 districts to about 500. This required a little juggling of district boundaries in Centre County, since State College, Bellefonte and Bald Eagle each had more than 4,000 students, but Penns Valley enrollment was well under that number.

At a special meeting on February 3, 1964, the State College Board and its component districts signed an agreement terminating the existence of the individual townships and borough boards, effective July 1.

Looking back on efforts to bring five townships and State College together into one district, T. Elwood Sones, Centre County superintendent of schools, recalled, "It was fraught with innumerable road blocks...and money was a major problem. Without the support of the Centre Daily Times, the efforts to reorganize the Centre County public schools would have failed."

Several new adjustments took place after the successful merger. For starters, there would be nine State College board directors instead of 32. Starting in 1967, directors were to be elected in odd-numbered years and serve six-year terms. For the State College Area School District, voters throughout the geographical area would elect directors, unlike elsewhere in the county, where designated regions elected directors.