WILKES-BARRE -- This could be decision day in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District. The issue is what to do with hundreds of Coughlin High School students, forced out by a demolition and construction project.
Students got off buses in front of the Mackin School on Chapel Street in Wilkes-Barre Monday morning. There's a chance this could be happening twice as often in the fall -- morning and noon.
Coughlin's former ninth and tenth graders are already there. Eleventh and twelfth could be joining them in the fall with juniors and seniors in the morning and underclassmen in the afternoon.
Alex Rodriguez will be a junior in the fall.
"I don't really care as long as we go to school, just get our grades up and possibly go to college," Rodriguez said.
The district wants to tear down Coughlin High on North Washington Street, close Meyers High, and build a new combined high school on the Coughlin site.
The district is thinking about doubling up students at Mackin.
Bernice Wartella has a freshman daughter there.
"I don't agree with how late the possibility that some of the children will be going to school. From what we're hearing, they possibly may not be out till 5, 6 o'clock at night, getting home at 7 or 8," Wartella said.
Wartella fears students and parents will be forced to make tough choices, having to decide between class time and extracurricular activities.
Over at Coughlin, junior Sarah Kelly Is trying to look on the bright side.
"I don't really mind because we'll get out at 12 o'clock and go in at seven. That's not too big of a deal."
Kelly worries the reduced class time could affect her education but she adds, "there's nothing you could do about it."
Doubling up Coughlin students at Mackin still isn't a done deal. The Wilkes-Barre Area School District does have some other options. That includes modular classrooms, somewhere, and possibly leasing the soon-to-be-vacated Times Leader building on North Main Street, turning it into classroom space.
The school board meeting, where all of this could be decided, is set for 7 p.m. Monday at the Mackin School.