The Onteora School Board voted unanimously last week to combine improvements at the middle/high school and Bennett Elementary into one single $70.5 million bond proposition, a step necessary to consolidate the district into a single campus.
The consolidation will require closing Woodstock Elementary by 2028, making Bennett the only building serving grades K-5.
Onteora School Board president Cindy Bishop said she saw first-hand as an administrator the effects of declining enrollment on the district.
“Year after year, I was faced with juggling staff and programs, especially self-contained classes, to meet the ever-shifting enrollment in our two small K-3 buildings,” said Bishop, the former director of pupil personnel services.
“There were times when special classes mandated by state ed to have no more than 12 students would have as few as three or four students enrolled for the year,” she said.
“For entire years, handfuls of students would spend each day receiving the most restrictive programming I’ve ever experienced because we were forced to maintain two small K-3 buildings.”
Students with special needs were routinely bused all across the district, often having to change schools mid-year when programming needs changed, she noted.
Onteora’s enrollment has dropped by nearly half in the last decade from a height of 2111 in 2004 to 1040 this year.
“No one here takes this decision lightly. It’s important to recognize this was an ongoing process and discussion over many years,” school board vice president Meghann Reimondo said.
Consolidation is a necessary step due to declining enrollment, district officials have argued, a point made even more urgent by the possibility of losing more than $7 million in state foundation aid.
“When we started this discussion about a central campus, there was not a looming risk of losing over $7 million in our annual operating budget,” superintendent Victoria McLaren said.
“I believe that we would be forced to consolidate just based on that loss,” she said.
“To not plan will leave us in a very tenuous position. We would be doing everything reactionary and that’s just not a good way to plan for the future of our district, for students, for our community.”
Onteora receives $7.9 million in foundation aid but is considered overfunded by $7.3 million, according to the district.
One board member has trepidations about closing a school in a more populated part of the district, but agrees it should be put up to the voters.
“In the community that I’m a part of, they really do threaten to leave when we say we’re going to close, and have left, or haven’t enrolled,” trustee Emily Mitchell-Marell said.
“I’m just so scared this is the wrong decision and there’s no way to go back. I see all the points. It’s just very frightening to me.”
She conceded that if the bond vote passes, it may be healing for people to whom the May 2023 board vote to close Phoenicia Elementary and begin consolidation didn’t sit right.
The board will vote on the specific language of the combined bond at its next meeting March 18.
Of the $70 million in improvements, $15 million will come from the capital reserve and $55.5 million will be financed.
However, according to projections by the district’s fiscal advisors, savings realized by consolidation will result in zero tax impact over the 15-20 year terms of the bonding.
Improvements to Bennett, much of which is necessary for the consolidation, will cost $38.6 million. It includes $12.5 for a new wing with ten classrooms, an expanded library, office spaces, bathrooms and a security vestibule. A new drop-off lane, gym, replacement windows, music room additions, reconfiguration of the cafeteria and kitchen and drainage, electrical, boiler work and fuel tank removal make up the remainder.
At the middle/high school, new science classrooms, a counseling suite, main office renovation, a nurses suite and auditorium work will cost $8.2 million. Athletic field improvements, track upgrades, the demolition of the old bus garage, new students commons and upgraded parking will cost $11.8 million
Incidentals for both buildings adds another $11.7 million.
Some district residents had called for the Bennett and middle/high school work to be split into two votes, but the board decided bundling them would result in a lower tax impact.
A consolidated district reduces operating costs through efficiency, the district has argued.
Closing Phoenicia has reduced transportation costs and lowered maintenance and operational costs, the district noted.
If the bond passes and the state Education Department approves the projects, construction could begin summer 2027 and be completed September 2028.
But the group Onteora Parents Engaged Now, or OPEN, has objected to the bundling. The quality of the middle/high school facilities should not be tied to consolidation and the closure of Woodstock Elementary, it said in a statement.
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