Dear New Paltz School District taxpayers and parents, This - TopicsExpress



          

Dear New Paltz School District taxpayers and parents, This Tuesday, October 28th from 12-9 pm at the New Paltz High School there is a vote for a $52.9 Million dollar school bond. Many parents, teachers and taxpayers will be voting NO. We understand our schools need repairs. We also understand that in these difficult economic times, the project needs to solve all the problems of our schools for all our children, while assuring academic integrity. The district is selling the project based on an incorrect calculation of state aid and debt. Outside calculations that were run by the State BOE predict that your New Paltz School taxes will increase close to 30% in the next 5 years, making it unaffordable for many to stay in New Paltz, in addition to forcing cuts to teachers and programs. This bond is similar to the one that was defeated resoundingly just 5 years ago. This bond allocates almost 70% of the $52.9 to the Middle School, leaving many repairs to the High School, Lenape and Duzine unrealized. This means that the school district will need to come back to the community for more money that will be needed to fix the other 3 schools, increasing debt, taxes and forcing cuts. The school district is so intent on keeping the Middle School building that they have failed to deliver educational and operational efficiencies inside the building. Adding an additional 38,000 square feet to the existing school, whose enrollment is declining, does not drive operational efficiencies into the future and will actually divert taxpayer money away from programs and teachers. The School Districts own studies show that by scaling down to 2 campuses, the district would realize over $500,000 in savings from bus runs alone. That money would better serve our kids by using it on smaller classes, guidance counselors, art, music & sports, second languages and teacher/student ratio. If the goal of this school board is to save the Middle School, than plans should be developed and reviewed by the community to combine the Middle School & High School at the MS site and combine Duzine & Lenape at one other campus. The revenue from the sale of the 2 schools along with the operational savings from consolidation to just 2 school campuses could be used to offset the cost to the taxpayers and deliver new healthy schools vs renovated unhealthy schools for our children and their teachers. We are asking you to Vote NO on Tuesday. There are many needs this community has and only by working together to take advantage of consolidated funding at the state level and NYSERDA money available for climate neutral new schools will solve our shared problems and continue to call the New Paltz community our home. Parents, teachers, government officials from the local level to the State are committed to working with the School District to create a new plan within the next year that the community can all support .Please join us in voting NO on Tuesday and let’s get started on a better plan for our community and kids. Please look at the two videos below and the attached letter. vimeo/109821853 https://youtube/watch?v=t7JQpOlUl-s&list=UU9oYtfL9yxMsVvhdlsnHPuQ&feature=share
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 20:03:26 +0000

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