The Mineola Board of Education discussed the results of a community survey sent out to gauge the community's feeling about reconfiguring the grades of the district and closing either one, two or three schools at its board meeting last week. The survey results indicated that the majority of the people who responded aren't in favor of keeping all seven schools open. However, Mineola School Board president John McGrath said he hasn't seen any evidence in the grade configuration study to justify closing any school in the district.

"I'm not seeing it at this point," said McGrath.

The board will now decide whether to proceed with focus groups perhaps in September and then make a decision whether to close a school or schools. However, it doesn't seem likely that if the board decided to reconfigure grades, that a change would occur before the 2010-2011 school year.

The Mineola School District has one of the highest cost per pupil averages in the state with an approximate cost of $29,000 per pupil. A school community-based finance committee was asked to investigate what drives the district's high cost per pupil and one of the factors is the district's small neighborhood schools. The Mineola School District consists of a pre-kindergarten and kindergarten school, four elementary schools, a middle school and a high school.

In order to control property taxes from reaching a point where residents of the district would find it nearly impossible to keep paying school tax increases, the board of education commissioned School Leadership, LLC to conduct a grade configuration study to ascertain what the savings would be through a variety of options.

Option #1 calls for closing three schools and having four remain open. Those four would include a school for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade; a school for grades 2 and 3; a school for grades 4-6 and a school for grades 7-12. The estimated annual savings would be $3.90 million.

Option #2 calls for the closing of two schools and having five remain open. Those five would include a school for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten; a school for grades 1-2; a school for grades 3-4, a school for grades 5-7 and a school for grades 8-12. The estimated annual savings would be $3.65 million.

Option #3 calls for the closing of two schools, and having five remain open. Those five would include a school for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten; a school for grades 1-4; another school for grades 1-4; a school for grades 5-7 and a school for grades 8-12. The estimated annual savings would be $3.45 million.

Option #4 calls for the closing of two schools and having five remain open. Those five would include a school for pre-kindergarten-grade 1; a school for grades 2-5; another school for grades 2-5; a school for grades 6-8 and a school for grades 9-12. The estimated annual savings for that option is $2.62 million.

Option #5 calls for the closing of one school and having six remain open. Those six would include four school for pre-kindergarten-grade 5; a school for grades 6-8 and a school for grades 9-12. This option actually calls for $150,000 in additional annual spending.

Option #6 calls for all seven school buildings to remain open and for the educational program to not be impacted.

The district sent out a survey to all residents within the Mineola School District borders including households with children in the district and households without children in the district.

Of the 8,913 surveys that were sent out, 1,412 were returned or 16 percent. Of the 1,412 that were returned, 789 came from residents without children in the district; 515 came from residents with children enrolled in the district; 77 came from children enrolled in private school and 31 were unidentified.

According to the report on the survey issued to the board of education by School Leadership, LLC, the residents without children in the district agreed that Option #4 should continue to be studied while they disagreed that Options #5 and #6 should continued to be studied. Residents with children in the district agreed that Options #4 and #6 should continued to be studied and disagreed that Options #1, 2 and 3 should continued to be studied.

In essence, non-parents disagreed with keeping all schools open or closing only once school whereas parents disagreed with closing three schools and with two other options that included closing two schools.

As far as the overall survey respondents, Option #4 received the most support while the majority of residents disagreed with keeping all seven schools open. Still McGrath feels there is not enough evidence to support closing a school.

The original purpose of the grade configuration study was to find a way to perhaps deliver the educational program at less of a cost to the taxpayer. However, with School Leadership concluding that the Mineola school buildings are underutilized, the question of whether the district can deliver its educational program just as effectively in a more effective manner.

Albertson resident John Campanella, who spoke at Thursday night's meeting, questioned whether Option #4 would be worth pursuing. The options could involve moving central administrative offices from the second floor of the Willis Avenue School and then converting that floor into classroom space would come at a cost. The overall savings for that option is estimated to be $2.62 million. Campanella suggested that $2.62 million of a $78 million school budget, which amounts to a 3 percent savings on the budget, is not enough of a savings to justify closing two schools.

Cindy Hazelton, however, feels that the board has the opportunity, through a possible grade configuration, to keep the schools and the program in the school equitable and thus serving all of the school better. During a previous focus group, some parents suggested that the educational program was not being delivered in as fair a manner in some schools as it is in others. School board member Laraine Salvatore asked to explore possibly redrawing the district lines.

The board will continue to discuss its grade reconfiguration study at its next board meeting on June 19. The board will have to decide whether to have another community focus session and, if so, when that will be.