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Board Should Not Proceed

Do we need to spend $57,290,509 on our schools? Will we be building more classrooms than we need? Are we filling a wish list?

History

In November of 1996 the Board of Education advised the taxpayers that the schools could be repaired and enhanced for $33,618,705. This proposal provided for six new classrooms, a cafeteria, a library, a media center and math lab at Stratford School for $1,977,840 and four new classrooms and a multipurpose room at Stewart School for $1,586,700 as well as a new library/media center and laboratory alterations at the middle school and high school.

The Board then formed a capital project team consisting of a member of the Board, administrators and the architect and construction manager. This team went to each school and "asked them to highlight their education needs." The cost of repairs and enhancements became $57,290,509 (a $50,012,023 bond issue, plus a six-year capital improvement plan of $7,278,486, to be paid out of the next six annual school budgets commencing with the 1997/98 year).

The bond proposal provides for 30 new classrooms and ancillary space at all the schools. At Stratford School the classrooms were increased from six-to-10 and the cost became $6,076,508 and at Stewart School the classrooms were increased from four-to-six classrooms and the cost became $3,905,238.

The reason for the 30 additional classrooms is based on the Superintendent's prediction that the student population will increase from the current 3,441 children to over 5,200 children in 2006. Never in the history of Garden City have we had more than 5,000 children in our schools.

Population Data

In October 1994, a committee of residents, assisted by a professional demographer, ("Long Range Committee"), prepared a report reviewing the capacity of our schools and forecasting the student population through 2003. The committee recognized that the data on which the report was made was evolving and requested that the Board reconvene "a committee of this nature every two years."1 The Board chose not to do so.

The Superintendent's prediction of over 5,200 children by 2006 is based on the number of children to be born in Garden City and the number of children who will move into Garden City. He assumes that there will be a 16 percent increase in the number of children to be born in Garden City from 1996 to 2001. There is no factual support for this assumption.

The New York State Bureau of Vital Statistics has reported that the birthrate in Garden City fell by 2 percent in 1996 rather than rose 2 percent as the superintendent predicted, a 4 percent difference. The downward trend of the birthrate has been confirmed by a 1997 Nassau County demographtic study which showed that the county birthrate turned downward in 19962 The reason that the birthrate is falling is because the nmber of women of childbearing age is also falling. The result of the decline in the Baby Boom generation. (BOCES' Study, page 5.

The Superintendent has also assumed that the number of children who will move into Garden City will exceed the birthrate by at least 25 percent in every year between 1998 and 2006. This has never occurred in the history of Garden City.

The Superintendent predicts that our school population will increase 52 percent over the next nine years. This compares with recent BOCES' studies in Manhasset and Rockville Centre, which forecast increases of 11 percent in school population over a similar nine-year period.

Using the new birth data and the Superintendent's calculation that 25 percent more children will move into the district than are born each year, the school population forecast for 2006 declines from the Superintendent's prediction of over 5,200 children to 4,686. Even this number is questionable as it is a 36 percent increase in enrollment over nine years. The Board's building plan is to permanently construct classrooms for approximately 4,800 children, a population not seen in Garden City since 1970.

School Capacity with Proposed Additions		Revised Enrollment Forecast
		01/02	06/07
K-1	737	666	658
2-5	1,556	1,369	1,524
6-8	1,222	960	1,200
8-12	1,354	1,005	1,266
Sp Ed		32	38
Total	4,869	4,032	4,686

However, our own Long Range Committee recommended that the Board consider modular classrooms to provide for the peaks of population (Report p. 41).

Modular Classrooms

School populations have peaks and valleys. In early 1970 there were 5,000 children in the schools. To provide classroom space from 1971 to 1976, previous Boards leased four portable classrooms at Stratford School. By 1980, the enrollment dropped, the district no longer needed the portable classrooms and had to close Hemlock School. Hemlock remained closed for nearly 15 years until it reopened in 1995. History will repeat.

These classrooms are inexpensive and can be removed when no longer needed. They are of high quality, bright, roomy, air conditioned and have their own bathrooms.

There is no rationale for permanent construction of all these classrooms now. The baby boom population will pass. The student enrollment will decline as it did in 1980s. Then residents will have spent money to build classrooms that will no longer be needed but will have to be maintained. Another committee will be created to study what to do with Hemlock School.

Conclusion

The Board should not proceed with the expansion plan based on the Superintendent's questionable population assumption. The Superintendent himself has recognized the difficulty in making enrollment projections as in the last two months he has revised his earlier forecast downward. Our residents deserve that a reliable enrollment projection be made by a professional demographer.

If we do not learn from history, we will be condemned to live it again-a painful, costly lesson.

Thomas M. Lamberti

1 Report of the Committee for Long Range Facilities, October 1994, page 43.

2 Annual Regional Nassau - Suffolk Public School Demographic Study, September 1997, a service of Western BOCES, page 5.