District Solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik
The Harrisburg School District held a public hearing Tuesday to solicit input about the formal closure of two middle schools.
Later this year, the district will formally vote on whether to close Rowland Academy and Marshall Academy, both of which it began phasing out a few years ago. (Marshall Academy is not to be confused with Marshall Math and Science Academy, a separate school that remains open.)
The closures are part of a comprehensive district restructure that began in 2023 under then-superintendent Eric Turman.
Designed to conserve resources, the plan was rolled out with the goal of recreating neighborhood schools at the elementary level, balancing student populations between school buildings, and simplifying its list of facility improvements.
The plan was approved by Pennsylvania’s Department of Education and the district’s former receiver in February 2024.
While the district is still following Turman’s plan, it has since gained new leadership. Superintendent Benjamin Henry joined the district in November 2024 and the school board gained back its voting power when the district exited state receivership in June 2025.
On Tuesday, board leaders noted that while the plans to close Rowland and Marshall are well underway, they had never approved it themselves.
“At the time, we weren’t in position to vote as a board,” said board president Roslyn Copeland. “I had a lot of concerns with the reconfiguration.”
In the plan, Camp Curtin (6-8) was tapped to be the “flagship” middle school for the district, to be flanked by two additional options: Marshall Math and Science Academy (6-8) and the blended-learning/hybrid Cougar Academy (K-12).
Several public commenters Tuesday expressed concern about putting most of the district’s middle schoolers into just one building. According to John Reedy, the district’s chief operations administrator, the capacity of Camp Curtin is 900 students; it estimates 740 are now enrolled.
Public commenter and Harrisburg City Council member Jocelyn Rawls worried Camp Curtin was becoming a school for all students who failed to get into application-based STEM magnets. She suggested that the school needed to develop specialty programing such as public health, communications or theater.
“Those students should be given a purpose to come to school every day, instead of [being] noted as ‘failure to thrive,’” she said.
Rawls, who has two children in Harrisburg schools, came to the public hearing despite a conflicting city council meeting because she felt it was important for her to attend.
Harrisburg City Council member Jocelyn Rawls addresses school board members during public comment.
Harrisburg resident Ronda Sparkman said she was concerned about the class sizes and behavior issues at the middle school.
“These kids are out of control,” she said.
Sparkman’s son, who attended Camp Curtin, told her that kids would throw milk and water on the bus. She questioned whether combining students from all of Harrisburg’s neighborhoods caused more fighting.
“Kids from Uptown don’t necessarily get along with kids on the Hill,” she said, referring to Allison Hill.
Reedy said Camp Curtin is expecting to operate at 80% educational capacity and that the conversion of an enrollment center will add five more classrooms in the building for next year. A second cafeteria for students is also in the works. He noted the district can expect to save money by consolidating its middle school administrative staff as well as custodial and food service staff.
After board member Brian Carter asked about class sizes at the school, assistant superintendent Marisol Craig said it is expecting 24 to 26 students per classroom next year, Public commenter Melanie Cook said this number makes it tough for teachers to control a classroom.
The district began phasing Rowland out of operation three years ago after a feasibility study estimated $15 million of improvements would be needed to keep the school, initially an office building, operational.
This school year, Rowland served just 8th-grade students. These students will graduate to high school at the end of the year. Craig said around 20 staff members from Rowland will also transfer to Camp Curtin next year and that no staff will be lost.
Camp Curtin has already absorbed would-be incoming lower-grade Rowland students over the last few years.
The district also heard comments on Marshall Academy’s provisional closure Tuesday.
This closure confused many public commenters, who mistakenly thought the hearing was for the STEM-focused magnet school Marshall Math Science Academy.
Although the two schools shared a building and a staff, Marshall Academy operated as a separate, general education middle school program with non-STEM classes. Programs for the two schools were registered under different state codes and had different student admissions processes.
“Marshall Academy was our attendance-zone students that lived in the neighborhood and Marshall Math Science Academy was our application STEM program,” explained Craig.
Effectively, Marshall has not been operational since the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, when most of its 83 students were absorbed into the Marshall Math and Science Academy, explained district solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik.
The official referred to the action as “a ‘paper’ closure” because the physical building, which still houses Marshall Math and Science Academy, remains operational.
Per the Pennsylvania Public School Code, school boards must hold public hearings three months before they vote on permanent public school closures.
The board voted in February to set this public hearing date. The school board will formally vote on the closure of these schools at a special meeting on June 30.
Harrisburg school board members
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