Facility for troubled adolescents raises concerns among neighbors<\/p>\n
At the start of this school year there will be an education and therapeutic program for those young men in the Tyrone Area School District who have had academic or behavioral issues that have prevented them from reaching their potential in the public school system.
\nPyramid Healthcare is opening Greentree Village in Bald Eagle, Snyder Township. The program is designed to offer a full educational program that is sanctioned by the Tyrone Area School District in conjunction with a therapeutic component that offers group and individual counseling to deal with emotional health and behavioral issues.
\nResidents of Bald Eagle are not pleased with the decision to place Greentree Village in the predominant elderly community. Not only that, but the residents feel the planning and decision was secretive and nearly hidden from them. What the residents fear based on Pyramid\u2019s placement is a crime problem that they believe may develop because of the youths brought into the program \u2014 and into Snyder Township.
\nAround 80 people, mostly residents of Bald Eagle, attended an open meeting at the Bald Eagle Fire Hall last evening at 7 p.m. to discuss and ask questions about the Pyramid Healthcare issue. Also in attendance were Pyramid Healthcare representatives, including Chief Operating OfficerJim Vernarsky, Adolescent Services Director Carol McFall and Director of Media and Community Relations Andrea Shope. Tom Templeton, the owner of the property that Pyramid is purchasing, attended the meeting, as well.
\nJohn Snyder, resident of Bald Eagle who lives right across the street from where Pyramid will be located, opened the meeting with his concerns. \u201cWe were all upset about the way it was presented and the way we found out about it,\u201d said Snyder. \u201cI spoke with State Representative Larry Sather and he told me to go to the school board and talk to a lawyer.\u201d
\nMany people in Bald Eagle, like Snyder, are upset and don\u2019t want to see Pyramid Healthcare in their community \u2014 but to do anything about that they need a lawyer and a petition. The residents feel they haven\u2019t had their chance to talk.
\nSnyder continued, \u201cTuesday morning we will be talking with Attorney Allen Krier out of Senator Jubelirer\u2019s group (to possibly take action) and we\u2019re going to take donations to help pay for those funds.\u201d
\nA lot of the concern has to deal with security measures at the Greentree Village. Snyder stated, \u201cThe school district has security cops, counselors and teachers, and they can\u2019t deal with these kids, so their going to dump them in Bald Eagle where we don\u2019t even have township cops.\u201d He added, \u201cOur closest cops are in Hollidaysburg and they don\u2019t get here in five minutes.\u201d
\nMany Bald Eagle residents had questions that needed to be answered and Vernarsky, from Pyramid Healthcare, who also spoke at the school board meeting this past Tuesday, approached the front of the room to try and clear up some rumors and answer questions to the best of his ability about security, where the youths come from that will be residing at Greentree and what Pyramid has to offer.
\nVernarsky stated, \u201cOn August 26th we will be opening a \u2018day program only\u2019 and those children who start are only going to be Tyrone School District children. There will be about 15 boys for now.\u201d He continued, \u201cIn about six weeks afterwards we\u2019re going to open an eleven bed residence for kids who are going to be staying overnight. Later on we are going to increase the number of kids that live at this site, which will be around 25-30 kids.\u201d
\nVernsarsky added that Children and Youth Services are sending out Blair County kids to other areas for treatment when they should be staying here, which Greentree Village will provide a base for that opportunity for some children.
\nStill, the security issue was on the minds of Bald Eagle residents, which Vernarsky addressed accordingly. \u201cWe devote our profession to problem kids and giving them a second chance or first chance to deal with life and move on,\u201d said Vernarsky. \u201cAs for security, we have staff twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and we have people that our trained and educated to deal with our population.\u201d
\nVernarsky added, \u201cWe have a ratio of 1.2 staff members per the number of residents that we would have.\u201d He also noted that isn\u2019t for every shift, but instead a total number. At night there will be about three staff members working. With the 20-25 youths at Greentree, Pyramid will be bringing 30-35 jobs to the area.
\nThe Bald Eagle residents who attended weren\u2019t completely satisfied and many not at all. Some residents spoke of their displeasure of Templeton\u2019s decision to sell the property to Pyramid Healthcare, stating that a \u2018good\u2019 neighbor would have informed them of what was going on.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t know until the other night,\u201d replied Templeton. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t sell the place to a drug treatment facility and they\u2019re not licensed to do that. I don\u2019t know what you want from these Tyrone and Blair County kids; where do you want them to go?\u201d
\nA lot of Bald Eagle\u2019s residents asked if anyone would want the Pyramid facility next door to their home or small community. They want to know if there is any danger and responsibility with having Greentree Village in Bald Eagle.
\nVernarsky admitted that Pyramid didn\u2019t present enough upfront information on the project to the Bald Eagle community, which he regretted.
\nEileen Glace, another concerned Bald Eagle resident, offered a different side towards the Greentree Village facility. \u201cI\u2019m afraid and we are all afraid,\u201d said Glace. \u201cI\u2019m not saying it should be in our community, but I\u2019m saying it should help our kids at Tyrone school \u2014 we need to help our kids. We can\u2019t send our kids to other areas for help either. We need help in our own community.\u201d
\nAs of now, Greentree Village will be opening their doors August 26th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Facility for troubled adolescents raises concerns among neighbors At the start of this school year there will be an education and therapeutic program for those young men in the Tyrone Area School District who have had academic or behavioral issues that have prevented them from reaching their potential in the public school system. Pyramid Healthcare […]<\/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-48325","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\/48325","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=48325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}