After decades of declining student population, the Saugerties Central School District (SCSD) appears to have plateaued, with district officials discussing redistricting as a possible means of ensuring equitable class sizes in its three elementary schools. The process may become more commonplace to address in-district enrollment trends.
The SCSD’s decline over the past two decades mirrors trends across the Hudson Valley, falling from 3,424 in 2000-01 to 2,978 in 2010-11, and finally to 2,245 in 2022-23. The SCSD closed Mount Marion Elementary School at the end of the 2021-22 school year, partly to make up for a budget shortfall, but also because district officials felt it didn’t make sense to operate four elementary schools as they had in the past.
“When we went with the model for…three K-6 elementary schools, one of the drawbacks was the possibility of redistricting more frequently to balance class sizes,” said superintendent Daniel Erceg during a meeting of the Saugerties Board of Education on Tuesday, November 12. “We are seeing that.”
During the meeting, Erceg noted that districtwide, trends have remained relatively static recently, rising slightly by 46 students to 2,291 over the past three academic years. But a more granular look at the numbers shows a greater impact at the elementary level. In the 2022-23 school year, there were 1,131 SCSD students enrolled in grades K-6; that number has risen to 1,160 as of November 4 of this year.
A more modest bump has occurred over the same span, with 1,131 students currently enrolled in grades 7-12, up by 17 since 2022-23.
“There is kind of that constant fluctuation,” Erceg said. “Nothing dramatic increased one way or the other. But where is the (student) population moving to?”
Where they’re moving, at least over the past few years, is within the Cahill Elementary School’s attendance zone. The school, located in the heart of the Village of Saugerties, has seen its overall enrollment jump from 399 in 2022-23 to 443 this year, with the average class size increasing from 19.9 to 22 over the same period.
By comparison, Grant D. Morse Elementary has experienced a more modest increase of seven students to 308, which has had little impact on its class sizes, rising from 19.7 to 19.9. And at Charles M. Riccardi Elementary, the student population has fallen from 431 in the 2022-23 school year to 409 today, a decrease in class size from 20.5 to 19.5.
Back at Cahill, even with all grades seeing increases, the student population in some cohorts is more pronounced than others. In Cahill’s fifth grade, there are two sections serving 61 students, which has broken through the district’s ideal ceiling of 29.5 students per classroom at that level. As a result, district officials are hoping to hire a teacher to create a third fifth grade section at the school. The wheels are already in motion should such a move be approved.
“We spoke with the administration last week about this,” Erceg said. “They have spoken to their teachers as to the best way to go about dividing students, as well as location of the classroom, as well as what it should look like. We do departmentalize in fifth grade, so they did have a conversation about whether it would still be departmentalized or if two teachers would departmentalize and have one class that they would teach all day.”
Erceg stressed that this hire would be temporary.
“This would only be a term position for this school year because the position is really driven by enrollment,” he said.
Redistricting is also on the table.
“With the enrollment shift, the decrease at Riccardi and the increase at Cahill, and then we have the spread of the class sizes, this is a time that we are going to need to explore redistricting again,” Erceg said, adding that the trends don’t appear to be due to inter-district relocation of students.
“It’s not a migration shift within our community,” he said. “It could be people leaving, people finding new jobs, people coming in to our districts more in the middle of the year.”
District officials have yet to put a timetable on the redistricting conversation, but acknowledged it could take place in time to have the process occur ahead of the 2025-26 school year.
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