Stanford parents call for more representation in school closure talks

STANFORD — Community members gathered on Wednesday, March 4, for a first look at a newly-formed committee that will analyze the impact of closing an elementary school building in the Pine Plains Central School District.

Town Supervisor Julia Descoteaux arranged the Wednesday meeting at Stanford Town Hall to find volunteers to represent the town in the district-wide Building Utilization Advisory Committee. The committee's first district-wide meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 12.

Pine Plains Board of Education members voted in February to form the committee. That vote came after Stanford residents asked for more details on plans to shutter Cold Spring Early Learning Center on Homan Road in Stanford. Superintendent Brian Timm announced plans to close the building and consolidate students into Seymour Smith Intermediate School in Pine Plains last year, citing declining enrollment district-wide and potential reductions in state aid that threatened the district’s budget.

Descoteaux said the Board of Education asked each of the nine towns in the district to send three representatives, which would result in a committee with at least 27 members. Three people have shown interest in representing Stanford in the multi-town committee — Kyle Odell, Brooke Brown and Abby Knickerbocker, though Knickerbocker was not present at the Wednesday meeting.

Descoteaux said the committee will analyze the impact of closing Cold Spring Elementary and draft a full educational impact statement. Educational impact statements are recommended — but not required — under New York State education law.

The educational impact statement will analyze the closure’s effect on the community, district finances, use of other buildings, staff employment, and school and extracurricular services. The district currently operates three buildings — Cold Spring Early Learning Center in Stanford, and Seymour Smith Intermediate School and Stissing Mountain Jr./Sr. High School in Pine Plains.

Cold Spring Elementary serves roughly 150 students from pre-K to first grade. There are currently just over 750 students enrolled in the district from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Superintendent Timm said enrollment is down nearly 50% in the past twenty years.

Community members in attendance urged Descoteaux to advocate for more Stanford residents on the committee, citing Cold Spring’s location in the town, the town’s contribution to the district’s revenue, and the school’s integral role in the community.

Descoteaux echoed those sentiments. “Our town has a little bit of a different stake in the game,” she said. “I’ve heard from multiple families that — very direct — they wouldn’t have moved here if there wasn’t a school in town.”

Descoteaux said school district officials requested that representatives include a local business leader, a parent or community member and a representative of the Town Board — a request she said she disagreed with. She said Stanford parents have already taken the lead.

“The community’s been driving this process,” Descoteaux said. “The hope coming out of this is it feels like this is a community-driven process.”

Descoteaux credited Stanford parents like Brooke Brown, who she said led the early efforts to press for more information and community involvement in the school’s closure. Brown advocated strongly for her inclusion on the committee.

“I think I just bring slightly more than an average person would because I’ve already done so much research on it,” Brown said.

Kyle Odell, a Stanford parent and financial manager based out of Poughkeepsie, also volunteered for the committee. He said he wants to take a harder look at the budgetary figures that school district officials cited when Cold Spring’s closure was announced.

Odell said he doubted district officials’ claims about budget constraints, citing figures on rising health care and other costs from district presentations that he said added up to less significant losses than administrators claimed.

“They’re looking at it as the price increase for those things but not as to what it is for the overall budget,” Odell said. “I want to be on this committee to actually see the numbers, especially digging in, so we’re actually making an informed decision.”