LECK KILL - The elementary school in this village has roots as far back as the 1920s, and it wasn't always an elementary school.
The 2012-13 elementary school yearbook features a brief history of the Leck Kill Elementary School as well as the elementary schools at Dalmatia and Trevorton.
In 1924, the school board of Upper Mahanoy Township built the Leck Kill Oddfellows Lodge, which was attended by 16 students. Over the next two years, enrollment doubled and a new building was needed.
By 1927, the new building, which is the current structure at 3664 Old State Road, was constructed and named the Pine Park High School. By 1949, the one-room schoolhouse without electricity or running water was renovated and renamed the Leck Kill Elementary School.
After 1959, kindergarten was first established at the school, and students attended kindergarten through fifth grade there.
LM is born
In 1966, Mahanoy Joint and Trevorton districts merged to form Line Mountain as part of the Pennsylvania School District Reorganization Act of 1963, a mandated initiative to combine smaller school districts into larger schools in the interest of cost efficiency and better educational opportunities.
At the time of the jointure, the former Mahanoy Joint High School became Line Mountain High School and the former Trevorton High School was converted to a middle school. Leck Kill was one of the four elementary schools in the district at the time in addition to West Cameron, Dalmatia and Trevorton. West Cameron Elementary School closed in 2001.
In 2003, a temporary addition was put on Leck Kill to accommodate sixth grade.
In 2007, due to intense community opposition, the school board voted to keep the three elementary schools open and renovate each building.
It cost $9.6 million to renovate the high school in Mandata and add a seventh- and eighth-grade wing in 2009, $7.4 million to renovate Trevorton Elementary School in 2009 and $1.1 million to renovate Leck Kill Elementary School in 2010.
With continued increases in salaries due to contract negotiations, the district's contributions to health care and pension benefits and general operating expenses, combined with a governor's budget announced in 2011 that would take state subsidy back to 2007-08 level funding, Superintendent Dave Campbell said it made sense to explore the consolidation option again.
It was decided last year to close Leck Kill and Dalmatia elementary schools at the end of the 2012-13 school year, and send those students to Trevorton Elementary.
Trevorton Elementary School will be renamed Line Mountain Elementary School.
