At the age of five – twelve years ago — I was enrolled in Woodstock Elementary School. At that time, it was one of three high-quality K-through-6 schools in the district. At Woodstock, I enjoyed short bus rides, an amazing music and arts program, and great teachers.
But just a year in, everything changed. Phoenicia and Woodstock transitioned into K-3 schools, and Bennett became a melting pot of their graduates as a 4-6 intermediate school.
All I noticed was that the towering big kids in the hallway had suddenly been replaced by a crowd of kids closer to my age. When I entered third grade, and became one of the pseudo-seniors of the building, I was ecstatic to be using the previous sixth grader’s lockers.
Now I’m a little older, I see the less positive aspects of this shift. While my bus ride remained short, some of my friends had to sit still on a bus for a half an hour or more. When Phoenicia and Woodstock sent its graduates to Bennett for fourth grade, large, clique-like groups of students from the same schools stuck together.
Some students had to spend as long as 45 minutes on the bus. Some kids had never been in such a large class or seen so many kids their age. For them, it was a huge adjustment.
For many, including myself, the idea of shutting down my K-3 school is unfathomable — even though Woodstock was dead to me the day they tore down the beautiful wooden playground and replaced it with the current garish metal structures.
One version of the proposed plan calls for moving students as young as ten into the shared middle/high school building, presently housing grades 7-12. There are more than enough issues as it is.
The most important difference between Bennett, the current intermediate school, and the middle/high school is the freedom that comes with walking the halls freely. In fifth grade, students are led by teachers and expected to walk in straight, single-file lines, with their hands at their sides. In seventh grade, the halls are a jungle. A poor, innocent senior like myself can expect to be bumped into by twelve-year-olds on the journey from fifth-period gym to sixth-period chemistry.
A more likable plan, by me at least, is to transition Phoenicia and Woodstock into K-5 schools, shut down Bennett, and make the middle/high school 6-12.
Though this plan saves much less money than the plan to shut down both K-3 schools, it still saves way more than what we are saving now, which is nothing. It also gives young kids more of a chance to operate within their own small communities.
I think that staying at Woodstock for just two more years would have given me the opportunity to form a deeper bond with my town. It doesn’t help that going to school Monday through Friday feels like being shipped off to no man’s land. I’ve not found Boiceville a nurturing community space the same way that Woodstock and Phoenicia are.
One thing I liked about all the configurations is that they increase the grades in the middle school. While I certainly think that fifth grade is too early, sixth grade feels sensible. As it stands now, Onteora is one of the few districts whose middle school consists of just seventh and eighth graders.
Trying to fit the amount of credits needed to fulfill New York State’s middle-school guidelines into two years is stressful on young kids. Starting middle school just one year earlier could give the age group much-needed down time during the day, in the form of more music and art classes or study halls.
Provide your input now
The Onteora Central School District’s low student enrollments continue to raise serious issues. Something needs to be done. Graduating classes that once reached over 200 now hover around 90, and the school-age population of the district isn’t likely to increase any time soon.
Three full years ago, the district released a 70-page study by veteran consultant Dr. Kevin Baughman offering five alternative scenarios to tackle the ever-thorny possibilities of grade configuration in its four operating buildings, to deal once more with how to handle declining enrollment, and to address the ever-present need to save money.
Since that time, no decisions have been made.
There was minimal attendance at the January 10 school board meeting to discuss long-term configurations.
Three meetings will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on January 31 in the middle/high school cafeteria, on February 28 on Zoom, and on March 27 in the middle/ high school cafeteria. The district has been asking potential attendees to fill out a brief questionnaire found on www.onteora.k12.ny.us/survey23.
Baughman’s report three years ago projected that Onteora enrollment would decline another 195 students over the next ten years, totaling 38 percent of the pupil population over 20 years, and leaving approximately 35 classrooms — or the equivalent of two schools — empty.
Recent data continues to confirm Baughman’s prediction of continued enrollment decline in the Onteora schools. In December 2022, 1107 students were enrolled in the school district, a drop of 88 from December 2019’s 1195. The high school showed an increase from 409 to 412 students in that period, while the numbers in the middle school decreased from 227 to 173, in the Bennett School from 256 to 241, at Woodstock Elementary from 169 to 151, and at Phoenicia Elementary from 135 to 130.
A January 2021 enrollment update by Monica LaClair & Forecast5 said that Onteora had a total enrollment of 1392 students in 2013-14 and 1187 in 2020-21. Total enrollment in 2025-26 was predicted to be 1044.
Which option is best?
The district is struggling to find its best option. The configuration that would save the most amount of money calls for shutting down the Woodstock and Phoenicia schools, turning Bennett on the Boiceville campus into a K-4 or K-5, and bringing the rest of the grades to the middle and high school. This seems also to be the most contentious option.
Two alternative models would make Phoenicia and Woodstock elementary schools, currently housing grades K-3, into either K-4 or K-5 schools, with students in grades five, or grades five and six, moving to the middle school, which occupies the same building as the high school. This would effectively eliminate the need for Bennett, which currently houses grades 4-6. Closing Bennett and reassigning its students to one of the two other schools could potentially save the district $500,000 annually.
Two alternative models looked at closing both the Phoenicia and Woodstock elementary schools and reassigning their students to Bennett. In this scenario, either Bennett’s fifth-grade students, or both its fifth and sixth graders, would be reassigned to the middle school. These two models could potentially save the district about $400,000 annually.
Retaining the present configuration is the fifth alternative. Doing nothing would save nothing.
A consideration of the closing of a public school building – let alone more than one — is a traumatic event. It’s traumatic for the communities whose separate identities take for granted that their children will go to the local school building which they attended. Can you imagine Woodstock or Phoenicia without their elementary schools?
A closing is especially traumatic for those with both fond and unfond memories of their school days. But change is inevitable as societies evolve. Consider the fate of the one-room schoolhouses that educated local people for generations. And change hasn’t halted with the founding of the local school districts – of which the 300-square-mile Onteora district established in 1952 is geographically the sixteenth largest in New York State.
West Hurley’s elementary school was closed in 2004, and a new grade configuration for the Onteora school buildings was adopted in 2012-13.
Not just a matter of money is involved. Dr. Baughman’s 2019 research found that academic achievement when children make transitions to new schools can be adversely affected for one to three years, with some children never fully adjusting.
“You could look at five or 15 scenarios, but no one is like you,” Baughman, a former superintendent of the Niskayuna district for a decade, told the Onteora school board three years ago. “You’ve got poverty, and you’ve got wealth. You’re really large. You are truly unique.”
Which option is best? Time to provide your input.
Dr. Baughman’s study can be downloaded from the Onteora website at
https://go.boarddocs.com/ny/onteora/Board.nsf/Public. Click on ‘meetings’ in the upper right corner, then on January 21, 2020. Scroll down the agenda to item 8 to find the final report.
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