In a story you’ll see on spotlightnews.com, the results of a recent building study in the Guilderland Central School District were met with a quick and impassioned response from parents of students attending Altamont Elementary, a school that figured in four of the seven scenarios as closing. One of those scenarios involves doing nothing, and the other leaves room for a community-generated plan.
Administrators have responded to early concerns by reminding people that this study, prepared by outside consultant Paul Seversky, is just the beginning of a discussion about ways to address unused space in the elementary, middle and high schools. They have urged calm and invited parents to be part of the process, which will take place in community discussions in the coming months.
During that process, we would like to see the development of a “scenario seven” that doesn’t involve closing Altamont.
It seems more sensible to take a look at all of the buildings that are far short of capacity, such as the middle and high schools. In fact, the high school, which has up to 20 percent unused space, is not even mentioned in any of the scenarios, a glaring omission if we are truly looking at ways to address this problem.
While we agree that unused space is a problem for any school district, we feel closing Altamont Elementary School is not the answer for several reasons.
For one thing, Altamont Elementary serves the largest and most geographically remote portion of the school district – the southwestern end of the town. Beyond the village of Altamont itself, the school brings in students from Guilderland Center and from the borders with New Scotland and Knox. While the number of students is small (290), the distance they travel to get to Altamont Elementary is not – the farthest having to travel 4.12 miles by bus. If Altamont Elementary were to close, those students would face far longer distances to travel – as much as 13 miles to Westmere Elementary in the northeast corner of Guilderland. Furthermore, if there weren’t a school able to absorb all of Altamont’s approximately 300 children, would they then be split up among the remaining schools? These children, who are neighbors in their community, could find themselves isolated in far-flung schools throughout the district.
Then, there is the emotional aspect of closing Altamont Elementary. For 60 years, the school has been a community center beyond just the education it provides, and that relationship is tied to home values and economic possibilities within the village. Closing the school would not only tear apart the current relationships the village’s children have with one another, but it would also eliminate something that makes Altamont unique within the school district. No other elementary school within the district can lay claim to serving an independent community within the town.
School district officials have stated that the building study is only a preliminary report, and they will continue to study every option. They’ve also said they do not want the process to pit one school against another in an attempt to save itself from closure. We hope that’s the case, but with only two schools recommended for closure, the other being Lynnwood Elementary, that may be hard to avoid as families from both embattled schools rally to the cause.
Frankly, there are no easy options available for the district to deal with its unused space issues, and we are grateful the district appears to be in no hurry to rush a decision. These coming discussions will require a lot of out-of-the-box thinking to come up with solutions that don’t involve diminishing the education of one group of Guilderland students during their formative years.