MOUNT PENN BOROUGH— Things were different before the flood.
Melissa Caterini, a resident of 14 years, gravitated to the quiet bedroom community in Berks County to give her kids a "perfect childhood."
Her family found that idyll in Antietam School District, where her three children attended since they moved here. Staff were accommodating, and fellow families often interacted at a local pool.
And when some districts tentatively expressed interest in a potential merger, Antietam officials abandoned talks with districts that wanted to merge with it, a choice officials have not explained.
These challenges have splintered the once close-knit community over the past year, pitting residents against each other as they try to determine the best path forward for the district.
“We stopped going to the pool in July because even the whole vibe … was different,” Caterini said. “It’s just sad because it’s not what Antietam used to be. Everybody’s got their own opinions, and no one can come together for the kids.”
Clashing neighbors
Antietam officials scrambled to find a solution to educating students after the flood. They arranged for kids to attend classes at existing Antietam buildings, Trinity United Church of Christ of Mt. Penn, and Albright College in Reading.
The Antietam School District is surrounded by five others, each of varying sizes and demographics. While Antietam has similar demographics to the Reading School District, with high minority enrollment and large percentages of children from lower-income households, its total student population is a fraction of Reading’s elementary pupils.
The hodgepodge approach left Mount Penn residents frustrated with parking arrangements and complicated school for some students.
Caterini’s children all faced challenges during the 2023-2024 school year. Her youngest son broke his leg after slipping in mud at Albright College, and had to wait for Antietam’s principal “to get permission from Albright” to call an ambulance, she said. Then, the district didn’t follow her eldest son’s learning accommodations plan. And her daughter got sick from a gas leak during classes at Trinity.
Antietam Superintendent Tim Matlack, who took on the role in July, confirmed in an email to Spotlight PA that a kitchen pilot light went out at the church and caused a “gas odor.”
Matlack said the district was “not willing to engage in a back-and-forth” regarding Caterini’s son’s injury. He denied there was a delay in care and said the “only permission the district needed” for the ambulance ride was from the parent.
Other students enjoyed the temporary setup.
Marina McGough’s daughter loved going to the church for classes last year, the Antietam mom of two said.
“I think it is the way it's presented to children by their parents. I never made it a big issue,” she said. “As a parent, I don't think that was the ideal situation … There was no other option. Not one district neighboring us would take in our students. So what were we going to do?”
Antietam’s leaders tried to find a better stopgap for the 2024-25 school year, but neighbors stymied the effort. A proposal to use the Mount Penn Primary Center for high school classes was blocked when nearby residents filed lawsuits arguing the plan would cause traffic issues.
It wasn’t as though the buildings hadn’t been used for schooling. The biggest change would be that the schools in Mount Penn would house older students, including high school grades, in the primary center. But in the lawsuits filed by residents, the proposal was described as “intensified use” of the buildings.
Parent Tianna Schaefer said the whole process was “incredibly hard and stressful” for the students, like her daughter, who had to live with the consequences of adults’ decisions.
“I couldn't believe how well they handled it and how poorly so many adults handled it.”
Hurtful words
Facing new financial struggles, the district worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Berks County Intermediate Unit, and local and state elected leaders to develop short- and long-term plans.
One option was a merger with a neighboring district.
In November 2023, Antietam School Board President Michael Roberts sent letters to the education officials of Exeter, Governor Mifflin, Muhlenberg, Oley Valley, and Reading.
Talks of a merger quickly divided the close-knit Berks community, which had seen previous such consolidations fail to take off.
Governor Mifflin and Muhlenberg never responded, and Exeter said they weren’t interested, citing a financial analysis from a failed 2014 merger attempt between the two districts. During that failed attempt, Exeter residents disparaged Antietam students, according to a letter sent to Antietam parents.
“During this process, we were surprised at times when people spoke unkindly about our students,” the Antietam district wrote in the 2014 letter. “These children ALL deserve the best we adults can provide them, and no one had the right to express any opinion about the children that degraded them.”
But even as Oley Valley and Reading schools responded with interest in sitting down with Antietam, residents in those communities pushed back.
“You have to consider the type of student that comes from Antietam,” resident Cynthia Smith said during a December 2023 Oley Valley school board meeting. “We have good kids at this school and you are going to be introducing a whole other element, and I don’t think that’s healthy for our school district.”
The comment linked Antietam students to those of Reading, districts that both have high minority enrollment and many kids from lower-income homes. Oley Valley is the least diverse district out of the five schools bordering Antietam and has the lowest percentage of economically disadvantaged students.
Oley Valley and Antietam officials rejected that sentiment in a joint statement two days later, but it was an attitude Antietam residents were all too familiar with.
People outside the Antietam community spoke negatively of poorer, non-white students, and parents say the kids weren’t immune from those remarks. Antietam mother Susan Arnold recalled that her kids heard about the Oley Valley comment before she did.
The derogatory comments made it clear to McGough that Oley Valley was not a place for her or her kids.
“I don't care if their test scores are through the roof. I don't care if they [are] promising my child will get a full ride somewhere from their academics,” she said. “There's a clear message there that I don't want to be a part of. Our community is very small and diverse, and I love it. That’s how I want my children to live.”
Surveys of families and residents in Antietam about a potential merger also demonstrated a divide between the two groups: Parents were less inclined to support a merger, but people without students in the district supported one.
Kerry Gergen, a Mount Penn resident of 23 years, said the “real issue” with the district is that Antietam doesn’t have “adequate resources” to support students.
While she has no children in the district, Gergen pointed out that Antietam has no softball or football teams and must contract with outside vendors to provide special education services and other student support. Taxes rise annually, test scores remain low, and she believes the district’s financial difficulties are compounded by spending and borrowing at “unsustainable” levels.
“Antietam right now is paying consultants all over the county and shipping kids out,” she said. “We are basically having to pay extra for everything.”
Hurtful comments weren’t just uttered by residents outside the district.
Corinne Hauk, a 2004 Antietam graduate with two kids in the district, recalled someone “joking” on a Facebook page during an air show held at the Reading Regional Airport in June about “dropping bombs” on the primary center. It’s one thing to express displeasure or feel the “district isn’t cutting it,” she said, but attacks are unwarranted.
“We can't disagree without attacking someone's character,” Hauk said of recent local spats.
“That's not just a difference of opinion anymore,” she added. “That's a character concern.”
Amid the rancor, leaders at Reading and Oley Valley continued the email exchanges with Antietam. The other two districts each offered possible meeting dates.
But nothing came of the outreach. Antietam’s leadership never progressed with merger talks.
During a June board meeting, Antietam board president Roberts told a resident other districts were not interested in a merger.
Roberts did not respond to Spotlight PA requests for comment about the merger talks.
Matlack said he couldn’t confirm or deny the timeline outlined by Spotlight PA in follow-up questions, pointing out that he wasn’t with the district at the time of the merger talks.
“In terms of what you are asking, at this moment the school board is not pursuing any course of action that would involve merging with another school district,” he said.
Susan Angstadt / For Spotlight PA
Antietam Middle-Senior High School was destroyed in a 2023 flood. The district plans to build a new elementary school at the site.
Healing after disaster
Without public discussion, Antietam has wiped the slate on potential merger talks.
Matlack said he’s focused on securing “any and all grant funding to alleviate” borrowing money for constructing the new Stony Creek Elementary Center.
Some plans are proceeding. The district will demolish the flooded middle-senior high school and build a new elementary school in its place. High school classes at the primary center began a week late after the collapsed floor area was blocked off, and modular buildings at the flooded site in Lower Alsace now house students in grades one to three, the Antietam superintendent said. Meanwhile, fourth through eighth-grade students attend classes three blocks away from where high school classes are taking place, Matlack added.
Fundraiser efforts, largely led by Antietam students, have also helped alleviate the district’s financial burden. Past and present students created a documentary to support their efforts to raise money for the district. A GoFundMe started in January by Antietam seniors has raised nearly $7,000 and a donation event hosted at a local gastropub raised $800.
These sums fall short of the needed money, however. Cleanup and demolition of the destroyed high school alone are estimated to cost nearly $22 million. And constructing a new elementary school could cost up to $35 million, an amount Matlack said could grow.
“My focus is just getting things settled here so that kids are in safe spaces and they're able to do the learning that we want them to be able to do,” Matlack said.
The new school year and a permanent superintendent have also helped the community move forward. Residents say Matlack has been transparent with parents and provided regular updates to keep families apprised of progress.
Caterini said she’s “optimistic” about the new superintendent. The school year is going better for kids as well, she said.
“My daughter loves school. Last year was really hard for her, just because it was just utter chaos. She's happier this year because she goes, ‘Well, at least we have a building,’” she said. As a solidified plan for the 2024-25 school year took shape over the summer, McGough said residents came around and began recognizing the district could make it work.
The “temperature has changed,” she said, and the focus now is on being positive and moving forward. She hopes this will serve as a learning experience for some adults in the community.
She said, “you can be against something,” but work towards a better plan rather than “totally resisting and throwing up walls left and right.”
And even though Mount Penn residents have again appealed the court’s decision to allow Antietam to use the primary center for high school students and the intermediate school for grades four through eight, Antietam parents supporting the long-term plan said they feel confident the district will prevail.
“I'm just thankful that we are on a path moving forward. There is a plan, and I'm hoping that the roadblocks are very few because I don't know how much more can be handled and managed,” Arnold said. “It just needs to move forward in a positive way.”
