It's been about a year since a group of Wheatland residents last held a community meeting on their plans to leave the Farrell Area School District.

The effort has not died and Wheatland's Educational Alternatives Taskforce is about to resurface as it tries to answer the half-million dollar question: do enough Wheatland residents agree with them to put a possible secession into motion?

WhEAT members hope to hit the streets sometime this month with petitions asking residents to sign their desire to move to the West Middlesex Area School District.

Buoyed by the results of surveys of residents and fund-raising efforts, WhEAT members believe the time is right to bring their effort to a head.

"In the life of WhEAT, it's time to move to the next step," said WhEAT member Don Stinedurf, a borough councilman.

The petition will list several reasons why WhEAT wants to make the switch, said group attorney Joann Jofery: that it would be in the best interest of borough students to change school districts, that West Middlesex is more goal-oriented, has a better strategic plan, and will be able to motivate students better, and that its administrators and school board members are more responsive.

Student safety is a key issue, she added.

"After sixth grade, our kids walk on state highways without sidewalks," she said. "In West Middlesex, except for the kids in the borough, everybody's bused. That, quite frankly, has always been a big issue here.

"We send almost a half a million dollars in taxes from this borough to the school district. For that kind of money, they can buy us a new bus every year."

According to borough tax records, Wheatland sends about $503,000 to Farrell schools each year.

Ms. Jofery acknowledged the reasons are "delineated fairly broadly." She said other successful secession efforts have stayed away from being specific.

"I don't think the place for that is the petition," she said, noting that WhEAT's petition is based on one that residents of Woodward Township, Lycoming County, used to successfully leave Williamsport Area School District for the Jersey Shore Area School District.

"From the ones I've seen that have been approved, I don't have any reason to believe that there's going to be a problem getting these approved," Ms. Jofery said. "If the Secretary of Education wants to have a hearing, I think that we can put enough evidence on to support with specifics."

The Secretary of Education weighs the educational merits of a change, while the state Board of Education has jurisdiction on whether property should be transferred from one district to another.

Organizers are confident they will be able to meet Ms. Jofery's goal of 374 signatures. She noted that there are about 80 school-aged children in Wheatland, and about one-fourth of them attend private schools.

"There's also families with kids in Farrell schools who don't want them there," said Stinedurf, whose daughter attends a parochial school. "They can't afford private schools."

The biggest challenge, organizers said, will be convincing senior citizens to sign.

"The seniors are going to be the hardest if they believe that's going to negatively affect their property taxes," Ms. Jofery said. "However, I don't think it's going to negatively affect their property taxes because the money that's now going from Wheatland into the Farrell school district will be going into the West Middlesex school district. I can't imagine that West Middlesex would then need another tax increase, or the people in West Middlesex are going to be screaming."

Ms. Jofery acknowledged she doesn't know how the financial scenario will play out if WhEAT is successful. Mercer County Common Pleas Court will decide how Farrell's finances will be divvied up, with a portion going to West Middlesex.

She said it's not legal for a school district to tax member municipalities at different rates, but the chunk of assets from Farrell might offset the difference in tax rates.

It's even possible, given that West Middlesex would receive more than $500,000 in new revenue for less than 100 students, that the board could reduce taxes, she said.

"I can't speak for the West Middlesex school district," Ms. Jofery said. "When I do vote in that district, I will be one of the people down there asking about this."

Farrell's current property tax rate is 119 mills, while West Middlesex's is 146.

Since those millages were set, Mercer County has since changed the formula for determining a property's tax assessment. Schools have yet to pass budgets based on the new formula.

Using the new formula, Farrell's millage would be 39.67, and West Middlesex's 48.67.

Wheatland's senior citizens would benefit in an increase in their property values should Wheatland join West Middlesex schools, Ms. Jofery said.

"A lot of these people have raised their family and they're living in a house, and they're going to be able to sell that house," she said.

The census showed that Wheatland's median age is 45.8 -- oldest in the Shenango Valley -- and its average household size is 2.14 people, smallest in the valley.

WhEAT is considering a public relations campaign to promote the effort and answer questions once the petition is complete. Possible parts of it are mailing a newsletter to residents, and holding a community meeting for people to peruse the petition and ask questions.

Ms. Jofery predicted it would take 90 days for WhEAT to fully circulate the petitions, and hopes to have a petition asking for a hearing before Common Pleas Court by the end of the school year.

"We're going to take the petition, and we're going to attempt to get it signed," Ms. Jofery said. "We may be back here in six, eight weeks with 15 signatures and all of them are ours saying, 'Hmm. How did we miscalculate this?' I don't expect that to happen. We are not taking for granted that we're going to be able to do this."

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at

jpinchot@sharon-herald.com