Primary Election Day: Close Schools?

Closing Great Valley schools on primary election day is a good idea by all accounts, but it might not happen this school year.

District business director Chuck Linderman called it a good idea for the future, but said there are two obstacles toward closing closing the schools:

• There are no in-service days near the date (April 24, 2012) that could be shifted.
• The primary occurs in the middle of PSSA testing, which administrators are hesitant to interrupt.

Willistown resident Sally Campbell raised the issue during the public comment portion of the school board's Monday night meeting, citing safety concerns.

"We just invested all this money in the Raptor system to keep our kids safe in the building because we're going to have an increase in volunteers, then we open two buildings to the public," Campbell said.

and elementaries are used as polling places.

The school paid $11,200 dollars this year for upgrades to the Raptor visitor badge system. Visitors to the school, including volunteers, have their driver's licenses scanned and undergo a background check. ("And if you're wanted, the police will show up," Linderman said at a February meeting.)

Voters are not put through the Raptor system. Several board members expressed an interest in closing schools, at least those that serve as polling places, on election days.

A member of the audience said that at the last the presidential primary, 2,800 people voted in Charlestown alone, which created lines out the door and traffic snarls when the buses got rolling.