What started out as a quiet agreement between the Tyrone School District and Pyramid Healthcare to provide service for residential, treatment and educational services has turned into one of the most talked about topics of 2002.
\nPyramid Healthcare which operates facilities in Blandburg and Clearfield similar to the one that was opened in Bald Eagle.
\nPyramid Chief Operating Officer Jim Venarsky said before the school board entered into agreement with Pyramid, \u201cThe kids are the victims,\u201d said Venarsky. \u201cThey haven\u2019t been in a good situation. A lot of the kids we treat have had histories of sexual or physical abuse. We bring them in and give them a unique and structured environment. It is a therapeutic school that is staff intensive. We have one staff for every patient.\u201d
\nThe idea behind the agreement with Pyramid was to bring students back into the Tyrone area to get therapeutic services.
\n\u201cWe liked what this program offers,\u201d said Tyrone Assistant Superintendent Joann Lang. \u201cWe have 27 students who go outside our school district for programs similar to this. We believe Pyramid provides a full education We have never seen a program like this before. Pyramid was interested in coming to Tyrone and was looking at the Ames building or working out of Church basements. The facility happened to come open. The people at Pyramid share a common vision with the School District.\u201d
\nAfter the agreement was passed between the Tyrone School Board and Pyramid, Bald Eagle residents formed the Snyder Township and Vicinity Concerned Citizens Group to try to block the opening of Greentree Village.
\n\u201cA lot of the concern has to deal with security measures at the Greentree Village,\u201d said Bald Eagle John Snyder. \u201cThe school district has security cops, counselors and teachers, and they can\u2019t deal with the kids, so they\u2019re going to dump them in Bald Eagle, where we don\u2019t have township cops. Our closest cops are in Hollidaysburg and they don\u2019t get here in five minutes.\u201d
\nAt the first community meeting held about Pyramid at the Bald Eagle Fire Hall, Venarsky addressed the issue of security.
\n\u201cAs for security, we have staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week,\u201d said Pyramid\u2019s COO. \u201cWe have people who are trained and educated to deal with our population.\u201d
\nA second community meeting was organized by Rep. Larry Sather and the same concerns were brought up.
\n\u201cThis is not a drug and alcohol treatment program, \u201cPyramid Chief Executive Officer Jon Wolfe said at the meeting. \u201cWe are willing to put that in writing. There are some kids that need more than just an education. When we make a commitment that we\u2019re going to focus on the people here in this community and that we\u2019re not going to do anything that would tear down the community, we will live up to that.\u201d
\nEd Schenck presented a petition to Sather with the signatures of over 550 concerned Bald Eagle and Snyder Township residents.
\nSather said of his intent of the meeting was to, \u201cmake sure this community\u2019s voice is heard.
\n\u201cMy opinion is that it may be in the best interest of this firm (Pyramid) that they reconsider opening as quickly as they plan to do because of what I heard here tonight,\u201d said Sather.
\nA third community meeting was held within days of the opening of Pyramid with seventy residents in attendance.
\nPyramid was granted an occupancy permit for Greentree Village, which allowed them to open the day school started in Tyrone.
\n\u201cWe had a real good case, hard and firm,\u201d said Snyder. \u201cWhen the occupancy permit was signed, we were sold down the river, but we can\u2019t give up.\u201d
\n\u201cI feel personally that things need to change,\u201d said Schenck. \u201cWe\u2019re the ones who are going to have to make the change. We\u2019re going to have to have the courage of our conviction to do that, we\u2019re going to have to have a backbone to do it. Ant change is better than what we got. We need to be instruments of change.\u201d
\nPyramid was recently granted an extension to fix State Labor and Industry violations and plans were approved by the Snyder Township Board of Supervisors for the construction of a new classroom facility on the Bald Eagle property.
\nAfter the first marking period, The Daily Herald featured what is happening with the program. The Tyrone School District is happy with the service they are receiving and the program seems to be benefiting the students that attend.
\nEditor\u2019s Note: If there is anything that has come out of this story, it is more involvement the matters of community government. Every Snyder Township meeting has no less than 15 people in attendance and the Tyrone School Board meetings have between 20 and 25 in attendance. There may have been errors in how Pyramid opened the facility in Bald Eagle, but if it helps one kid, it is beneficial to our community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What started out as a quiet agreement between the Tyrone School District and Pyramid Healthcare to provide service for residential, treatment and educational services has turned into one of the most talked about topics of 2002. Pyramid Healthcare which operates facilities in Blandburg and Clearfield similar to the one that was opened in Bald Eagle. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}