An outpouring of community support at a recent Niskayuna Board of Education meeting led most board members to describe closing Van Antwerp Middle School as a dire, last ditch option.
The board on Tuesday, Dec. 18, discussed options after hearing the school community loudly opposes closing Van Antwerp and shifting all middle students to Iroquois. Closing the middle school is estimated to save $800,000, which would help close the district’s $4.3 million budget gap. Superintendent Susan Kay Salvaggio urged board members to keep all options open until the governor’s budget is released in January.
Salvaggio started off by addressing rumors, which she said were spread through the media, that a decision had already been made to close Van Antwerp.
“No decisions have been made,” Salvaggio said. “This board would never make a decision and not communicate that process to the community. We don’t operate like that as an administrative team or Board of Education.”
To help community members know when a decision would be forthcoming, Salvaggio proposed a timeline with a decision on the middle school configuration coming on Jan. 22 or Feb. 5. The governor is expected to release his budget by Jan. 22.
“That is when we are going to really know what we can expect,” Salvaggio said. “We need to see what the governor’s budget holds for us, because we don’t know what we don’t know right now in terms of what Albany is planning to do.”
School board member Barbara Mauro asked why the option of closing Van Antwerp was still being considered.
“Why would we want to keep closing (Van Antwerp) on the table when it is clear the community doesn’t support it?” asked Mauro. “If the community doesn’t accept it now they are not going to accept it in February.”
Mauro acknowledged it would be a difficult budget, but closing the middle school was “false savings” because it is “just cutting people.”
Fellow board member Jeanne Sosnow said there haven’t been enough positives shown to counter the negative aspects of closing the school. Sosnow suggested closing the school should be placed at the bottom of the list of possible reductions, which is anticipated to be released on Jan. 8. The district’s administration typically drafts a list of such reductions, placing them in various degrees of severity.
Board member John Buhrmaster asserted all options should remain, because the severity of other reductions isn’t fully known yet.
“Anything we are looking at in this budget process in the end is to preserve programs,” Buhrmaster said. “We have so many expenses in this district that we can look at that are delicate to look at, but we should look at them.”
He added there are no cuts remaining that “won’t fill the room” with people opposing the proposed reduction.
“We’ve taken all the easy ones, every area we have left we will get 200 people in this room,” Buhrmaster said. “We can be moved by the public, but in the end we have to find out what is going to pass as a general budget.”
Board member Robert Winchester didn’t feel the community’s opinions had been properly heard.
“I feel that we have not adequately listened to the advice of the population that we serve,” Winchester said.
Winchester said instead of framing the question as how the middle school closure would affect students and families, the board should ask what would be best for the school community.
Matthew Bourgeois, assistant superintendent for business at the district, said in order to get the property tax levy increase down to 4 percent the district would need to cut around $4 million.
If the budget fails to pass, the district would have another attempt to present a budget to voters. If it failed to pass a second time, the district would be forced to make $6 million in cuts to hold a zero percent tax levy increase, as mandated by tax cap legislation.
A majority of the board favored leaving the closing Van Antwerp as a possibility, but at the bottom of proposed reductions to close the budget gap.
Two Van Antwerp students shared their thoughts on the closure with the board after its discussions.
Esabelle Gervasio, an eighth-grade student, said the district closed the school previously only to reopen it years later. She said closing the school would be more costly because several students couldn’t walk to school anymore, increasing transportation expenses.
Angeeras Ramanath, also an eighth grader, said combining schools would increase bullying, among other issues.
“There would be lots of flaws in the plan that you have right now,” Ramanath said.