Clarkstown parents decry schools demographics report

NEW CITY – Parents and other community members are pressing their case that the damaged Congers Elementary School should be reopened as they scrutinized a demographic report that forecasts declining enrollment in Clarkstown's schools.

More than 250 people gathered at the district offices Thursday night for a heated public question-and-answer session on the report, followed by a board meeting at which tempers flared over the lack of space for the extra large crowd as well as the appointment of an interim trustee to fill a vacancy created by the recent death of long-time school board member Diane Hoeneveld.

The demographic study, conducted by Western Suffolk BOCES, indicates that most of the district's 14 school buildings are underused and will continue to be underused through 2018. It predicts that kindergarten classes will be smaller, following a trend of fewer housing sales and a 7.4 percent decrease in enrollment over the last 10 years.

These findings have become the subject of growing controversy and skepticism as Clarkstown officials mull a districtwide building reorganization. Officials have invited input on the report but have shared few details about what direction they may take.

Superintendent J. Thomas Morton is expected to make recommendations to the board on Feb. 5, school board President Michael Aglialoro said.

"The reality is, this report cannot define the future of Clarkstown," said parent Sean Magee, of Congers, a former school board candidate. "This report is being used to create what's going to happen in the budget process, and that is the closing of an elementary school, or two."

Many parents voiced similar concerns about what they believe is the district's unofficial plan to shutter one or more buildings, including the Congers school, which was closed in August 2013 due to structural damage in a gymnasium wall. Students were sent to a closed parochial school last year and to other district elementary schools this year.

In February, voters approved borrowing up to $6.5 million to repair Congers — one of the oldest buildings in the district, situated in the heart of the tight-knit hamlet community — believing the investment would allow students and staff to return to their beloved red-brick school.

The board then awarded $4.3 million in contracts this fall, setting in motion a construction schedule that would theoretically make the building inhabitable by summer.

But officials have kept silent on Congers' future use as rumors circulate about whether it could be rented out or converted to an administration building, based on the demographer's findings.

Parents were impatient Thursday, peppering Western Suffolk BOCES employee Barbara Graziano, who worked on the report, with questions about her education and experience, methods used and margin of error (4 percent, she said).

One person asked about the projection of declining enrollment the organization gave the neighboring East Ramapo school district in 2009; since then, the public school population has grown consistently, due in part to an influx of immigrants.

"There was really no way to predict that that was happening," Graziano said.

In response to another question, she said the number of district reports she's helped prepare has increased since the state's tax levy cap has been in place; all the districts that have subsequently closed a school based on a report of declining enrollment view it as a "smart decision" without regret, she said.

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