In an era of bigger is better, Pennsylvania's smallest public school remains strongly rooted as the center of the community. Austin Area School serves a student population of 250, from prekindergarteners to seniors, in one building.

While small classes can benefit students, providing professional instruction to such a broad range of ages and abilities can be a daunting task. Our staff has shown a strong commitment to remain at Austin, despite the allure of greater pay and a smaller daily workload.

The district, which draws students from 230 square miles of largely forest land, provides a strong educational foundation that focuses on the needs of each student. While it is not possible to provide a comprehensive menu of courses, we are still able to accomplish many educational goals, including the mission of preparing our students for success in college.

A decline in student population has made it more difficult for Austin to fulfill the state and federal expectations. Still, the district has been recognized as meeting the state measure of success, Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), for the third consecutive time. The efforts that have been put forth by the staff and students to meet this goal are commendable, given the limited resources that are available.

All of our seniors are required, by board policy, to attend after-school remediation if they fail to meet state proficiency standards on the PSSA. During this latest year, the students who participated in remediation realized gains of 29 points in writing, 120 points in reading and 128 points in math. We continue to work to meet the performance expectations of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Over the past eight years, students from Austin have earned scholarships from Allegheny, Elmira, Pittsburgh and Susquehanna universities, with another student appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point. This is a source of pride for a school having one teacher (covering grades eight through 12) for science, one for English, one for history and two for mathematics.

Similar challenges exist at the elementary and middle school levels. We have just one teacher at each elementary level. For grades four through seven, we do have one additional teacher to work as a specialist for math, science and history. These same teachers also provide instruction in reading to the various grades.

Austin is proud to be one of the state's leaders in recognizing the importance of pre-kindergarten. We've had such a program in place for nearly 15 years, with nearly 100% participation by eligible students over the past three years.

We are also an innovator in providing guided reading instruction for groups as small as four students working at the same reading level. We've been in the forefront of other strong educational programs, such as instructional support, enrichment, and English as a second language.

Through the efforts of a supportive board and dedicated staff, we remain fiscally prudent while providing the most effective educational program for our students.

All of this takes place while our real estate tax base is seriously limited by the presence of 110,000 acres of state-owned land, which is tax-exempt. We receive a small per-acre payment from the state "in lieu of taxes." With the passage of Pa. Act 1, Austin along with other districts will eventually receive a higher in-lieu payment. We eagerly await this increased share, which is far from fair, but much better than the current scenario.