After voters rejected a $70 million campus consolidation plan, the Onteora school board is now considering a resolution to close Woodstock Elementary School, solidifying a plan to move forward with district consolidation to address declining enrollment.
“What I’d like to do is reach out to the attorneys in the morning and ask them to draft a brief resolution that clarifies the language that was not clear and that they later deemed as aspirational, to make it clear to the community that our intention is to close Woodstock,” board President Cindy Bishop said at the Sept. 16 school board meeting. The plan is to present the resolution for a vote at the Sept. 30 board meeting.
“I’m not saying by 2028. I’m saying we need to take a look at that. But to be clear, Woodstock will close and we will move to a central campus by whenever, by X date.”
Trustees are hoping to salvage a district capital improvement plan rejected by voters in May. The plan called for a Bennett expansion to accommodate all K-5 students and for improvements at the middle/high school. It was to be funded through a $55.5 million bond and the use of $15 million from the capital fund.
Woodstock-area voters saw defeating the proposition as a way to keep their school open, but district officials say looming aid cuts combined with declining enrollment make the closure inevitable.
The failed proposition was the result of a resolution on May 2, 2023, pledging the district would work toward a unified central campus by 2028. It was implied Woodstock must close to make that happen, but it was not specifically mentioned. The hope is a new resolution will make it clear.
But Trustee Clark Goodrich isn’t convinced.
“I don’t know what that resolution would accomplish,” he said.
Goodrich believes closing the school is problematic without approving upgrades to Bennett Elementary.
“My personal opinion is I don’t want to move fifth grade into the middle/high school, and I’ve got to believe most of us here don’t want to do that,” he said.
“In order for us to close Woodstock and move them into K-5, we need more classrooms. And in order to get more classrooms, we need to do capital improvements, and in order to do capital improvements, we need voter approval,” Goodrich said. “And if they continue to vote that down, then we can’t close Woodstock. It’s just the way it is.”
But Bishop argued Woodstock can still be closed.
“I think why the confusion is there is that we can’t build the 10 classrooms without voter approval. But we can close Woodstock,” she said.
She cautioned the district cannot afford to wait “for the bottom to drop out” of state foundation aid.
Trustee Caroline Jerome said it is hard not to be supportive of a central campus, but she has mixed feelings as she passes Woodstock Elementary School.
“We talk about an incredibly thriving school in Woodstock. It’s just overflowing, literally, as I drive down. So I think about that. And then I think about imminent loss of funding, how great a school we could build for everybody, having a larger cohort, not having to pay for facilities and extended staffing,” she said.
But then she thought back to an event at the school where cars were parked along Route 375.
“It’s really hard psychologically to look at that and to think that’s a place that we have to close. That’s the problem.”
Vice President Rick Knutsen pressed for a December ballot proposition.
“Leadership means making the hard call. And the way school districts are set up to be governed, it is the school board to whom it falls to make the hard call. And this is a hard call, but I think we have to make it,” he said.
With a focus on presenting a less expensive plan to voters, trustees have come up with a list of priorities for needed capital improvements, some necessary for consolidation and some addressing issues at the middle/high school. Estimates range from $16 million on the low end, which doesn’t include new Bennett classrooms, to $45 million.
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