On the eve of a budget vote and trustee elections, questions about the current Mineola School District reconfiguration plan dominated last Thursday night’s Mineola Board of Education meeting, which at times took on the appearance of a candidates debate.
“I think it’s part of my due diligence to take us down that road,” said Trustee Christine Napolitano.
Napolitano said she had received numerous phone calls from residents after two school board candidates raised questions about the plan during a candidates forum last week.
Veronica Levitan, who along with Joseph Monapella is challenging Board President Terrence Hale and Trustee William Hornberger, said during the forum that she strongly favored retaining the Willis Avenue School for grades Pre-K through 1, rather than making the Hampton Street School Pre-K through second grade.
Levitan said she had e-mailed a plan to the board that calls for using the Meadow Drive and Willis Avenue schools for district’s grades Pre-K through 1, the Jackson Avenue school for grades two through five, and no shift at the middle school or the high school.
The plan the school board is currently implementing would put fifth graders in the middle school and eighth graders in the high school
Voters will go to the polls on May 17 to decide on a $84.2 million budget for 2011-12, which represents a 5.11 percent increase of $4 million over the current budget. The tax levy would increase 2.37 percent.
Included in the budget is $2.6 million that would to be drawn from the school district’s general fund to upgrade the Hampton Street School that is part of the reconfiguration plan.
The reconfiguration plan also includes the closing of the Cross Street School in Williston Park, which the district has proposed leasing to the Solomon Schechter Day School of Glen Cove. The plan has drawn strong objections from Williston Park residents and a call to defeat the budget and the two incumbents by one of the leading critics of the plan.
At the board meeting, Napolitano asked Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler if current consolidation plans could be “reconfigured” by a newly elected school board.
Nagler said it could be done. He said Levitan’s plan was similar to what the board had proposed in the first of two bond proposals that were rejected by voters. The $6.7 million bond proposal included plans for adding 14 classrooms to the second floor at Willis Avenue and a rooftop playground.
Napolitano, who has endorsed the re-election bids of Hale and Hornberger, then challenged Levitan, who was present at the meeting, to explain her plan. Levitan said her plan excluded the rooftop playground, and started to tell Napolitano that she was simply suggesting another option.
“If you’re going to change the plan, I’d like to hear your numbers,” Napolitano said.
But before Levitan could reply, Napolitano said that, on second thought, she wanted to hear Nagler’s opinion of the plan and the numbers he foresaw if it was implemented.
“In this scenario, we closed a school and hired back teachers we just let go,” Nagler said, calling the change a “logistical nightmare.”
He said Levitan’s plan would undo the board’s work on school consolidation for the past four months and would prompt the hiring of 15 teachers, negating the projected savings of $2.4 million the school district would realize from the reduction of 19 positions.
Nagler also said that students in grades 2 though 5 would be “shoe-horned” into the Jackson Avenue facility.
“Our buildings are not big enough. If you want a reconfiguration you won’t have to revisit, you need to make buildings bigger,” Nagler said.
The current reconfiguration plan includes $2.6 million to enlarge the Hampton Street School and upgrade the Meadow Drive School library as those schools prepare to house grades Pre-K through 2, while the Jackson Avenue houses grades three and four as fifth graders move to the middle school and eighth graders move to the high school.
Nagler said the Levitan plan was “plausible” but would require reorganization of all the data for state reporting. He said it would be “crazy” to expect district schools could reopen “smoothly” in the fall.
Jack Waters, assistant superintendent for finance & operations, said that adding teachers would mean an increase of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent to the tax levy.
“It sounds to me you’re that you’re putting the taxpayer behind the eight ball,” Napolitano said.
Responding to a question about teachers negotiations from district resident Umberto Magnardi, Nagler summarized the concept behind closing schools in the face of a decreasing school population over the past several years.
“By closing schools, we’re reducing our staff without cutting programs. We’re consolidating kids. We don’t need as many teachers,” Nagler said.
Earlier in the meeting, Nagler got into a dialogue about the Cross Street lease with Tony Castiglia, who had questioned the superintendent about the value of the lease deal in an e-mail he also circulated to members of the press. He called the difference between the $235,000 the Mineola district would charge for Cross Street annually as a “gross inequity” compared to the $400,000 Schechter is currently paying annually for the Coles School in Glen Cove.
Nagler said that the real estate market has changed drastically in the 12 years since the Solomon Schechter School struck its previous deal. He said the school district had listed the Cross Street School with two real estate agencies, and the Schechter bid was the only one it received during the past several months.
“They’re not looking to spend the same amount of money,” Nagler said, adding “not that we don’t want every penny we can squeeze out of them,”
School board and administration sources have expressed concerns that issues about the Cross Street lease could negatively influence voters on the budget.
John O’Kelly, a former East Williston School Board member and self-styled civic activist, has been actively blogging and e-mailing messages that the Cross Street lease was a “sweetheart deal” for the Solomon Schechter School. He called on Mineola School District voters to reject the school budget and defeat Hale and Hornberger to prevent the lease from being approved.
After the board meeting, Magnardi said that the Cross Street lease is a primary issue among his Williston Park neighbors.
“In my world, Cross Street is the issue,” Magnardi said. “You can’t help but wonder if we’re getting the best deal.”
Asked about consolidation costs to date during the meeting, Nagler said that since February, approximately $375,000 has been spent on work at the Hampton Street School and eighth grade science labs in the high school.
In seeking re-election, Hale and Hornberger have stressed their records of maintaining tax levy increases of 2.5 percent or less for the past four years. The two both voted for the current reconfiguration plan.
Monapella, the other challenger in the race, said he favors “clustering” students, but opposes putting eighth graders into the high school.
Monapella, who is the executive director of Franklin Hospital in Valley Stream, said he supports the budget, and eventually closing the Willis Avenue school.
Asked whether he was concerned about the budget vote Hale said “It’s a shame it’s gotten to this point. People have to realize this is a cost-effective plan that will save $37 million over 10 years. To have this turned around, doesn’t make any sense to me.”
If the budget is defeated, the current board can still move $2.1 million it already earmarked for Hampton Street to the capital improvement fund, and a public referendum would be required to reverse that financial commitment.
Voting in the May 17 school election will be held at the Cross Street, Hampton Street, and Meadow Drive Schools and at the Jackson Avenue School from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
