
The New Paltz Central School District has been advised to close Duzine Elementary School to address dwindling student enrollment, but board of education trustees have yet to decide when — or even, if — that might happen.
On Wednesday, September 3, former Ulster BOCES Superintendent Charles Khoury presented the New Paltz CSD Enrollment and Space Utilization Study, which focused on the feasibility of closing Duzine after the 2025-26 school year; and the subsequent consolidation of the district’s grades pre-K-4 into Lenape Elementary, and grades 5-8 into New Paltz Middle School. Contingency solutions for potential student growth were also factored into Khoury’s calculations.
Khoury studied trends among potentially impacted cohorts, grades K-4 and 5-8. In the former, there has been a 30.9 percent enrollment decline from 2018-19 to 2025-26; there are currently 455 students in the K-4 cohort. Khoury found that the cohort is likely to stabilize over the next five years, at least temporarily ending a precipitous drop in enrollment.
In the grades 5-8 cohort, the past decline between 2018-19 and 2025-26 has been 24.7 percent; the cohort is projected to further decline by 20.2 percent through 2030-31. A middle school that less than a decade ago served 673 students, and currently houses 465 students, could drop to 371 in five years’ time.
Using an average class size of 22 students, New Paltz Middle School’s 22 regular classrooms and specialized subject-specific classrooms could meet the needs of between 23-19 classrooms over the next five years.
At the elementary level, Lenape is even better equipped to handle absorbing Duzine’s students; with 50 total classroom spaces, and a need for between 39-37 over the next five years — including ten special education classes — and the relocation of the central office, Khoury surmised that Lenape would easily handle becoming the district’s sole elementary school.
Though New Paltz High School would not be impacted by the closure of Duzine, Khoury’s study also included an enrollment analysis of grades 9-12. Between 2018-19 and 2025-26, enrollment has fallen from 761 to 624, a drop of 18.5 percent. That trend looks likely to continue, Khoury found, with a projected fall of 18.9 percent to 489 students by the 2030-31 school year.
Based on the district’s May 2023 Building Condition Survey, Khoury’s study also determined that Duzine is in need of a substantial facilities investment, with projected costs rising from $9,346,150 in May 2023 to $10,543,847 this past July. Since the Building Condition Survey, the need for a boiler replacement at Duzine has arisen, bringing the total projected cost to $12.1 million.
Though closing the school would save the district around $1 million annually to start, Khoury stressed that closing Duzine would not fully address the district’s estimated $2,354,000 budget gap for 2025-26.
Khoury’s study identified four different options for the district to consider:
1. Maintain the status quo: Keep Duzine open with the understanding that the facilities issues would need to be addressed.
2. Full consolidation: Absorb Duzine students in grades pre-K-4 into Lenape, move the district’s 5th grade students into the middle school, then lease or sell the Duzine property.
3. Partial consolidation #1: Keep pre-K and kindergarten at Duzine, move all grades 1-5 students to Lenape, lease remainder of Duzine, ideally to an educational concern.
4. Partial consolidation #2: Keep only pre-K at Duzine, use Lenape for grades 1-4, move 5th grade to New Paltz Middle School, then lease the remainder of Duzine.
Khoury recommended option #2, full consolidation, which in addition to the financial benefits, would allow for educational continuity. The study also recommended leasing Duzine rather than selling it outright, establishing an annual revenue stream.
The school board discussed the possible closure of Duzine at their meeting on Wednesday, September 17, though they have yet to make a decision. One thing was clear, though: they seem to feel making the transition in time for the start of the 2026-27 school year is unrealistic, and are instead looking at possibly closing the school before the 2027-28 school year.
Superintendent Stephen Gratto acknowledged that both the public and trustees had asked many questions about consolidation, and some were still left unanswered. Among them is how easily could Lenape absorb more students, and what would need to be done to the school to accommodate that influx.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” Gratto said. “We haven’t budgeted for the move…We’ve got to make a list of what needs to be fixed, but then you have to figure out how you’re going to fix it, who’s going to do the work. You may have to ask permission from the state to do certain things.”
Gratto said that closing Duzine at the end of the current school year would likely be difficult.
“In fact, you probably have to hustle to get September 2027 to work, if in fact you decided to go there,” he said. “But you also can’t wait too long if you want to close September 2027, because you would want to get the ball rolling quickly.”
Both Gratto and trustees dismissed public concerns that a decision had already been made, and that district officials were encouraging the school board to close Duzine.
“A couple of emails have suggested that maybe the board has been persuaded by admin or being pressured by admin to close the building,” said school board president Heather Kort. “I do not feel that way. In fact, I feel that admin has been cautious about all of this. I just wanted to dispel that myth right now, that I feel like we are thinking and researching our own and not really being affected whatsoever.”
How soon a decision will be made is unclear. Some trustees said they hoped a second study could be made to more specifically address further questions that have arisen, both from the community and within the Board of Education. What is likely, at least as of the September 17 School Board meeting, is that the current school year is not the last for Duzine Elementary School.