On May 20, Onteora voters will decide the fate of a $70.5-million capital project that will consolidate the school district’s grades K-12 into a central campus. District officials cite steadily declining enrollment as the reason a central campus is necessary. Opponents decry the closure of the beloved Woodstock Elementary School and question whether the large bond expenditure will actually save money.
Superintendent Victoria McLaren said the future of state funding has changed, making that choice even more of a necessity.
“In conversations with the community, we have discussed the potential for Onteora to lose a significant amount of foundation aid in the future and the potential that this loss of funding could cause the district to consolidate and close the Woodstock Elementary building without having renovated to create an intentionally designed central campus,” McLaren said in response to
questions about the upcoming vote. “When community members voiced concerns with this possibility and questioned whether we have the capacity to locate all students on our Boiceville campus without renovations, we have noted that 20 years ago, our district enrollment was double what it is today, and at that time the middle/high school held more students than are currently enrolled in our entire district.”
Consolidate due to a significant loss of funding, would allow housing students in the fifth through twelfth grade in the middle/high school building and all kindergarten to fourth-grade students at the elementary building.
The improvements to Bennett, much of which is necessary for the consolidation, will cost $38.6 million. It includes $12.5 million for a new wing with ten classrooms, an expanded library, office spaces, bathrooms and a security vestibule. The remainder will pay for a new dropoff lane, replacement windows, music-room additions, gym work, reconfiguration of the cafeteria and kitchen, and drainage, electrical, boiler work and fuel-tank removal.
The district touts the undertaking as cost-neutral, claiming savings from the closed school and consolidated bus runs.
Opponents to the plan have criticized the board for accepting the recommendation to bundle $20 million in renovations to make the middle/high school more palatable.
Adding another $11.7 million in contingency funds for both projects brings the total to $70.5 million. The district would use its $15-million capital fund to shave the borrowing down to $55.5 million.
Two school board candidates, Jenny Jared and Rory Smith, are on board with the plan, while Dan Aliberte, on the ballot, and Michael Hochman, a write-in candidate, are very much opposed.
Jenny Jared
“Three years ago I was very much against the proposed centralization plan,” said Jared. “In my search to help find solutions that could keep all of our schools open, I came to the conclusion that passage of the bond and the centralization of our elementary children is the best choice for our district.”
She said she has spent the last several years volunteering in the schools at all age levels, watched every board meeting, studied the data, spoke with teachers and administrators, and listened to parents and community members.
“The bond offered to the community as Proposition 2 ensures that all of our children can have the most high quality and equitable education possible under our current circumstances,” Jared said. “Centralization also protects the affordability of our district for families and taxpayers, which is an essential component in preventing further enrollment decline.”
Rory Smith
“Current enrollment is at around 1000 students, soon to drop further. Continuing to operate underutilized buildings is highly irresponsible to our taxpayers and a disservice to our students,”
Rory Smith said. “For over a decade, our youngest children have been split and distributed across the district to artificially fill our emptying buildings. This has been especially a hardship to those children receiving special education services. The Prop 2 vote on May 20 is not about keeping a school open or closed, it is about giving our students an improved learning environment. I support the passage of the tax-neutral capital improvement projects of Prop 2, both the use of reserves and the bond financing because I want to see all students receive upgrades and improvements to their learning environment.”
Should Prop 2 not pass, he said, “students will still be consolidated to the central campus and I would work with the administration and board members to develop a new plan to present that best serves our students at the central campus.”
“Since 1998, Onteora has not increased enrollment in any given year,” he said. “This solves several serious issues our current configuration creates including a lack of equity for our special-needs children, older buildings that are in constant need of repair and one of the highest costs per pupil in New York State, which is primarily driven by duplicate staff and transportation among multiple elementary buildings,”
Dan Aliberte
Dan Aliberte, who has a six-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, is skeptical of the district narrative.
“We’re told that we could potentially lose financial aid from the state based off a new formula, based off of a third-party report from a couple years ago,” he said. “This is something that’s been an initiative with some people in this district — the one campus — for almost 20 years. And there have been measures and steps over … that time to try to paint this district into a corner to get there.”
Aliberte called the current plan “just the flavor of the week.”
How is taking out $70 million going to deal with losing $7 million from the budget?
He questioned the efficiency rationale of closing Woodstock Elementary, given the population’s location.
“When 83 percent of kids who attend Woodstock Elementary live within a five-to-ten-minute car ride or can walk, then I don’t believe that that’s more efficient to take little kids on extended bus rides all the way to Bennett,” he said. “Additionally, the essence of the bond — 40 million dollars of it, practically — is going to build Woodstock at Bennett. So which is it? Do we have low enrollment and we need to roll the kids into one school, or we don’t and we need the same amount of classrooms but in Bennett?”
He believes the district is guaranteeing low enrollment by closing the school because nobody will be attracted to raise families in town. “The district, I believe, should be a little bit more understanding that Woodstock is the storefront of the district. If you close that, nobody knows the district’s open for business,” he said.
Michael Hochman
Hochman, a 2005 Onteora graduate, said keeping the school open is critical to the community.
“I think it’s really important that we’re showing fiscal responsibility and that we are taking a stepwise approach when we think about long-term projects like this that have downstream implications for future generations,” Hochman said. “We’re talking about a lot of money that’s going to need to be paid off over the next, you know, 20-plus years. We need to make sure that what we had projected to be student numbers are accurate and that there hasn’t been a shift with more families moving into the area.
Recently there’s been a big shift in construction costs from materials to finished goods to electronics. “So we need to make sure that the numbers that we’re originally projected to build a centralized campus are still accurate.”
Hochman has a master’s degree in pharmacy and health sciences and has spent his career ensuring delivery of services to rural communities.
Hochman said he wants to be sure the district is accounting for changes in population in recent years.
“We started this project, I believe in 2017, and a lot this changed since 2017. The demographics of what makes up the school district have shifted since the pandemic.”
Hochman has three children, two currently at Woodstock Elementary and another enrolling in kindergarten in 2027.
Laurie Osmond and postscript
Woodstock town-board candidate and 14-year school-board member was more directly critical of McLaren. Osmond is an organizer of the group Keep Woodstock Alive, which is promoting a “No” vote on Proposition 2, to buy time to come up with an alternative plan.
“I’m to the point where I don’t trust anything she says. She’s so single-minded about this,” said Osmond, noting a study the district commissioned the recommended closing Bennett and keeping Woodstock and Phoenicia schools open.
She also questioned major capital spending in these uncertain times.
“This is not the time to do an enormous capital project. If you saw we have a huge wave of population growth, we’ve got a big increase in aid, then okay, let’s build, build, build. But what about just doing some visionary programs … building programs instead of doing some buildings?” she said.
But McLaren said a defeat of Prop 2 doesn’t necessarily save Woodstock Elementary.
“There has not been a board decision on how to proceed toward their goal of a central campus if the proposition does not pass, but it is a misnomer to state that Proposition 2 not being approved will keep Woodstock open,” she said. “The concern that I and the board have is that we may lose foundation aid in the near future and if we do, we will likely be forced to close Woodstock regardless of the outcome of this vote. We hope we are not faced with that situation without having created an intentionally designed campus that will provide our students with opportunity and equity and honor our community vision.”
The vote on Proposition 2, which authorizes the $55.5 million bond, is May 20 at the Woodstock and Bennett schools from 2 to 9 p.m. Voters will also decide on a $63.59-million budget for 2025-26, resulting in a two percent tax-levy increase.
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