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All I know is that the students on LI are doing worse than ever report card wise. Each year the kids on LI keep getting dumber (sorry, lack of a better word) and the teachers on Long Island keep getting richer. They are the HIGHEST paid teachers in NY. You can tell by their cars in the school parking lot and the fact that teachers are one of the few professions who can afford to buy a house on LI. Scandalous! Yes, imo there should be a change.
Most of the recent talks of consolidation have been in the hamptons. Southampton and Tuckahoe have attempted mergers two tears in a row, failed both times. Property taxes would have plummeted in Tuckahoe and went up a little bit in Southampton. However, this was because Southampton already had very low property taxes (as most of the actual hamptons districts do). What I find interesting about the way consolidation is discussed out there, is that the small school districts are the ones in favor. You'd think they'd want local control, but no, they would give up some local control in order to reduce property taxes.
Center Moriches and East Moriches did a consolidation feasibility study a while back as well.
Consolidation will only work when it lowers taxes in both the districts involved, which it would have failed to do in Southampton. A potential successful consolidation on the East End would be Greenport and Southold. They both currently share a superintendent, and probably have similar property tax rates.
Outside of the East End, the only major recent talk of merging was in Elwood. The district asked all its neighbors to consider annexing them, not a single one even responded. Now that the Town of Huntington school districts are all seeing their enrollments plummet (especially Commack), the idea might resurface.
On one last note, almost every person I know who works in administration in any of the central high school districts (Bellmore-Merrick, Valley Stream, and Sewanhaka) believes that their system is inefficient and that they'd be better off with one K-12 system. I wonder what the financial implications would be of that sort of merger.
What I find interesting about the way consolidation is discussed out there, is that the small school districts are the ones in favor. You'd think they'd want local control, but no, they would give up some local control in order to reduce property taxes.
Center Moriches and East Moriches did a consolidation feasibility study a while back as well.
Consolidation will only work when it lowers taxes in both the districts involved, which it would have failed to do in Southampton. A potential successful consolidation on the East End would be Greenport and Southold. They both currently share a superintendent, and probably have similar property tax rates.
Outside of the East End, the only major recent talk of merging was in Elwood. The district asked all its neighbors to consider annexing them, not a single one even responded. Now that the Town of Huntington school districts are all seeing their enrollments plummet (especially Commack), the idea might resurface.
Only the very smallest school districts (under 1500 - and this fits very very few on Long Island. ) might economically benefit with consolidation/merger. For the non-expert this seems illogical and counter intuitive. See Newsday's map and introduction here: Long Island school districts and enrollments More research is readily available via google. That is one HUGE reason why Northport, Commack, and Harborfields were decidedly uninterested in merging with Elwood. (And fully answers your question as to why only the smallest districts even consider it.)
The fact that some enrollments have shrunk (and some quite dramatically) does not effect the 'very small district' truism.
BTW: Huntington and South Huntington School Districts are exceptions to the Town of Huntington enrollment decline and their overall student numbers are stable or slightly increasing (due to growing immigrant population) Regional Enrollment Continues to Decline - Western Suffolk Boces.
We need to consolidate to county schools. It will help our tax base and will create one salary structure for teachers rather than the BS we have today.
We need to consolidate to county schools. It will help our tax base and will create one salary structure for teachers rather than the BS we have today.
Consolidation into county schools might very well be more expensive than what we have now (see my post, above). I know it is counter intuitive to the general public (I took the time to research it when a knowledgeable friend made the claim and found I was completely wrong and she was right).
Teachers within Nassau and within Suffolk make essentially the same salary (adjusted for years, degrees, credits, sports, etc.). Again, one would might assume poorer districts = substantially or even marginally lower teacher salaries ...but that is not the case...even the differences between Nassau and Suffolk have essentially disappeared over the last 25 years. Admins are a different story of course.
We need to consolidate to county schools. It will help our tax base and will create one salary structure for teachers rather than the BS we have today.
Local school districts where I'm at in Vermont are consolidating into larger Supervisory Unions. I have yet to see a decrease in my taxes. One thing I've noticed is salaries are being paid as per existing teacher contracts. Once those expire, we can anticipate the lower paid teachers seeing their salaries increased to meet their higher paid peers with the SU. There has been a small reduction in administration, and consolidation into one administrative building. Savings on one side of the equation are being sucked up by the other.
We need to consolidate to county schools. It will help our tax base and will create one salary structure for teachers rather than the BS we have today.
That's never going to happen so just put it out of your mind. There are many many issues with county schools (we have them where I live) and it works OK most of the time, but there are times you want to bang your head against the wall. Logistically, for many reasons,(including current ownership of schools and buses and close placement of schools that are in different school districts - what happens to all those buildings?) it will never ever happen on Long Island. It can't. So find another solution.
Your biggest savings would be at the admin level anyway - all those teachers will still be needed and still need to paid. They aren't going to take a pay cut just because you centralize operations.
The most recent merger was Eastport-South Manor. Is anybody familiar with how property taxes were affected in that area?
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