The remaining families of the Prospect Community in Johnstown have until this weekend to leave their homes and some of those families have children in the Greater Johnstown School District.
We sat down with Superintendent Dr. Amy Arcurio Wednesday and although she doesn’t have an exact number of student transfers yet, she says majority will remain within her school district.
“We had around fifty, a little over fifty students that were going to be impacted and need to relocate,”
Arcurio tells us not all students will need to transfer schools because of their relocation from the Prospect Community.
“The majority of our students have been able to secure housing in other Johnstown Housing Authority properties, A large number of the families are relocating to Solomon, Oakhurst and Coopersdale and those communities all are within the Greater Johnstown School District.”
Arcurio said this is really good news because now those students and their families can rest assure that their child’s education will remain the same – at least for the time being.
“This is a very fluid situation and so the data that I have one day can significantly, can significantly change the next day,”
Although majority of the students have been able to stay within the Greater Johnstown School district, Arcurio says she is aware some have relocated from the Johnstown area.
So, she has had to make calls to other school districts to transfer student records.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to be proactive in this situation and ideally we would like to know well in advance that students are leaving or relocating, Anytime a student has to transition schools, especially at the end of the school year it’s incredibly hard, but we recognize its difficult all the time.”
Arcurio says she and other Greater Johnstown School District employees have stayed connected with those students and their families during this time of so much unknown.
“Families, just continue to stay in contact with a school personnel so we can support them in any way that we can,”
Arucrio says by mid April she should have a better idea of how many students will be able to stay in the Greater Johnstown School District as well as how many will have to transfer due to their relocation from the Prospect Community.
