Schools
Drop in K-L Enrollment Could Close Schools
Declining enrollment is prompting the district to begin a long-term planning process that could lead to partial or full school closings—though likely not for a few years.
At its most recent school board meeting, Katonah Lewisboro officials for the district's physical space as it relates to declining enrollment.
In an interview with Patch conducted during the last budget season, Board of Education President Mark Lipton and Superintendent of Schools Paul Kreutzer spoke of that need.
"The community will have to make some really difficult choices," said Lipton. "The student population has dropped from an all-time high of 4,100 students to 3,500 students—that's an enormous drop."
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Lipton noted that savings would be inevitable by shifting populations and gave the example of spending $100,000 to move the district offices to Increase Miller—which results in an annual savings of $100,000 each year. Similar measures can be taken with the educational environment, he said.
On whether that meant closing a particular school and when, Kreutzer said the options were many and the timeline was at least two-to-four years.
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"If we deleted one building, we are still using 15 percent more square footage then we had at the high water mark of 4,100 students," he said.
"Just in sheer boxes and square footage, we may close an entire building, or at least wings of buildings could be mothballed, the heat turned off," said Kreutzer. "We can convert green space to meadow, and spend less on maintaining space indoors and out. We could look at a Princeton model or moving fifth-graders to the middle school—there are many ideas to choose from."
Kreutzer said the district would be completing long-range pupil studies and engaging the community to tailor a program that works.
They predicted that in the next year they should be coming up with a "big-picture plan" but no changes would be made until at least the fall of 2014, possibly even later.
"The longer we wait, the more we know," said Kreutzer. "We want to be very prudent."
And if the community decides they want to keep their four elementary schools?
"Then the conversation will be about piercing the [property tax] cap," said Lipton.
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