Onteora wants to reorganize
Later this month, the Onteora school board will choose from three proposed plans to reconfigure the district. Two of the proposed plans would close Phoenicia Elementary School, leaving the district with two primary schools, one in Woodstock and the other at Bennett, at the Boiceville campus that contains the Middle/High School and the district’s administrative offices.
In the first, Phoenicia and Woodstock would house Kindergarten through grade 3, while Bennett would be dedicated to grades 4 through 6. Projected savings would be $2.1 million, with 28.5 personnel cuts including 8.5 teachers
In the second, Woodstock would be the sole Kindergarten through grade 3 facility and Bennett would house grades 4 through 6. Savings would be $2.6 million with 35 personnel cuts including 9.5 teachers.
In the third, Bennett and Woodstock would each house Kindergarten through grade 6, with Phoenicia shuttered and its population split between the two. Savings would be $2.2 million with 30.5 personnel cuts including 5 teachers.
District-wide enrollment has fallen from 2,263 in 2001 to 1,452 in 2011. It’s projected to fall further to 1,354 by fall 2013.
“It’s an emotional issue to change, and a personal concern because a lot of parents from their perspective view things as fine,” said Onteora superintendent Dr. Phyllis Spiegel McGill. “But financially we’re not fine, and educationally we’re not doing enough. If we wait a year, we lose another $2.5 million, which brings us to the abyss sooner, and we lose out on choices and control.”
Mega-district in the south?
In the southern part of Ulster County, three school districts are looking at merging into a mega-district.
Highland reached out to New Paltz and Marlboro to see if they’d like to go for grant funding to study consolidation or shared service. New Paltz’s school board signed on for a full district-merging consolidation study, while Marlboro wanted to study shared services with Highland.
Short of a mega-district, the three are enthusiastic about sharing services for BOCES — maybe even centralizing certain functions now performed by separate districts, including administration, bookkeeping and transportation. This would be a step toward a county-wide district in practice if not in name.
Enrollment is an issue in New Paltz. At one time, the district was expecting a large influx of kids from developments like Crossroads at New Paltz and at least one other residential complex. With the recession, many developers put those kind of projects on hold indefinitely or scrapped them altogether.
Budget considerations are a factor for both New Paltz and Highland. For example, Highland watched roughly $6.3 million in state aid evaporate within the last three years alone. There, even an above-the-cap 4 percent tax levy growth would still mean substantial cuts to teachers.
New Paltz faces a similar albeit not-as-steep reduction in state aid over the same period of time.
Saugerties staying put for now
One year ago, the Saugerties Central School District formed a committee to look into closing one of its four elementary schools. The Facilities Consolidation Committee was comprised of roughly 30 volunteers, including members of PTA groups, people from the community, school administrators and others.
The issue of closing an elementary school left one realistic conclusion: “It really wasn’t feasible,” said superintendent Seth Turner.
Though plans by other districts included significant savings from shuttering a school, Turner said the savings in Saugerties would not be as great as some believed. In addition to having a vacant building to contend with, the resulting redistricting that would follow a school closure would come with other costs as well.
One big issue is special education. Turner said if the district were reorganized, it might have to educate some students with special needs out of the district at a greater cost. Instead the district has focused on improving its own special education program to keep more students in Saugerties, and that’s saved money, he said.
The enrollment had seemed to be on a downward trend until last year. Late last September, the student population was around 3,000, around 120 more than in 2010-11 but still down from the 3,424 in the 2000-2001 school year.
Will Saugerties revisit the issue in the future?
“Down the road it may make good educational and fiscal sense. It’s something that could be looked at,” said Turner. “But I don’t see it happening for the next two or three years at least.”
Crispin Kott, Lisa Childers and Mike Townshend contributed to this article.
