In Long Island's smallest school districts, challenges and charm mix

Dana Andreoli walks around her second-grade class of 16 students, which, here in the Remsenburg-Speonk school district, is the entire second grade. The teacher settles in a corner to give two students some extra attention on today's lesson on poet Maya Angelou. Meanwhile, the special education teacher pops in to help a few youngsters, and the teacher's assistant works the rest of the room.

"Carla, do you know what an autobiography is?" Andreoli says.

"When someone writes about themselves," the girl says a little hesitantly, and teacher and student celebrate the answer with smiles.

Such is life in one of Long Island's small school districts, where educators pride themselves on providing students with more personal attention, smaller class sizes and a philosophy of teaching tailored to each child. Long Island has 124 school districts, many of them containing thousands of students within their walls. But hidden away are some 11 districts with fewer than 200 students in their schools, all in Suffolk County and most on the East End. 

Educators in these micro-districts say they can better suit a child’s education to their interests, and that, unlike larger districts, no student falls through the cracks.

Some of the districts — Sagaponack with five students, Quogue with 85 and Fire Island with 34, according to the most recent state figures — come as close as Long Island gets to country living, at least in an educational setting. Many teach prekindergarten through sixth grade and then send their students on to larger public school districts for secondary-level education, where the feeder district pays tuition that can be $30,000 per student and $70,000 for a special education child.

"These districts are anomalies in a dense suburban setting," said Lawrence Levy, executive dean at Hofstra University's National Center for Suburban Studies. "They meet the needs of relatively isolated populations."

For all their small-town charm, these districts have their share of challenges. Their spending plans leave little wiggle room, as they often receive little in state aid. Even relatively small expenses can send their budgets reeling. They often don't have all the offerings, courses and after-school amenities of larger districts, and it can be tough to provide so few students with enough socialization and diversity. 

Their finances can be dicey. Money troubles forced the New Suffolk district to announce earlier this month that its little red schoolhouse, built in 1907 and serving seven students in grades pre-K through six, would close at the end of the school year. That North Fork district was designated by the state comptroller's office as being under "significant" financial stress, and educators there said that with so few students, they simply could not offer what children needed.

Last year, the Wainscott district, which currently has 24 students in K-4, saw its budget fluctuate to the tune of a $1.3 million shortfall, when 22 students in grades 4-12 moved into the district. Officials had to pay their tuition to area schools, along with a significant increase in special education costs due to three new students who required out-of-district placements.

Wainscott twice failed to receive the needed 60% voter approval to pierce the tax cap last year and had to settle for a contingency budget, staff and program cuts, and a tax freeze. 

"We entered this school year with a tremendous amount of uncertainty," Wainscott school board president David Eagan said. "We did get some donations and scrambled to put things back in the budget. But that's no way to run a school district."

Nonetheless, these districts keep going. Despite the announced closing of the New Suffolk school, educators in these places say they hear little to no talk of consolidating with some larger district. Remsenburg-Speonk, which has a resident population of about 3,000, studied the idea in 1997 and found that merging with the Westhampton Beach district would raise local taxes, since the other district's tax burden was higher, Superintendent Denise Sullivan said.

Voters rejected the idea, she said.

'I know every kid's name'

The phone rings in the main office of the Fishers Island district, where 58 students are currently enrolled in pre-K through 12.

Christian Arsenault picks up the call. He serves as superintendent and principal.

“Yesterday I had to go clean a bathroom and fix something on the playground,” he said. “I also sub a class” when needed.

Fishers Island shows how each of Long Island’s micro-districts has its own identity. The Island is nine miles long and a mile wide, and it’s closer to Connecticut than Long Island. Access to the island comes in the form of a 45-minute ferry ride from Connecticut, and the population swells from 236 year-round residents to 2,000 during peak summer weekends, Arsenault said.

The district was founded in 1938, and the student population is split between students living on Fishers Island and those commuting from Connecticut. 

The biggest class, eighth grade, has eight students, and the smallest, pre-K, has just one. This year, there’s no fourth grade, he said, as there were no fourth-graders.

“I know every kid's name, and I have almost all the parents in my cellphone,” Arsenault said. “When you have a classroom of five or six students, you’re always engaged,” unlike in some larger districts where “you might not get called on all day.”

The staff of 23 is the biggest part of the Fishers Island school budget, which is a total of about $3.9 million, and adding an instructor can be a major budget matter, he said. The district is not big enough to field a football, lacrosse or swimming team, he said, but it does offer cross country in the fall, girls and boys basketball in the winter, and golf in the spring, he said.

Clifford Anderson moved his family to Fishers Island from Nashville two years ago. His wife, Rosanna, is pastor of the Fishers Island Union Chapel, and his son, Theodore, is an eighth-grader. 

Theodore, 14, has eight students in his class, and his father believes the small-town atmosphere has been a boon for him. Before coming here, Theodore had some trouble with math, but the individualized, focused attention has helped him over that hill, his father said.

"Here, he has really come into his own," Clifford said. "Everyone knows who he is, and where he is on his academic journey. I think he has become more confident in all his classes."

Socialization can be difficult

A major challenge in these small districts is making sure students get enough variety and diversity in their social activities, educators say.

"They have the same students in class year after year," said Laurie Sanders, who teaches art, special education and English as a New Language in Oysterponds, where the current enrollment is 83 students in grades pre-K to 6. "If you and your buddy are on the outs, who do you hang out with?"

Some of the districts combine two grade levels to enhance students' socialization, but even that can bring difficulties, she said.

"Fifth- and sixth-graders are only a year apart, but hormonally and socially they can be night and day," she said.

Students in small districts also can feel intimidated when they head out for middle and high school in a larger place, going from being a big fish in a small pond to a little fish in a big one, she said.

Educators say they take steps to minimize these challenges, encouraging students to engage in outside sports leagues and activities that bring together kids from other communities. Students often make visits to the larger districts before graduating into them, as well, they say. 

Carrie Sawyer, a Fishers Island art, life skills and career teacher, said at times she's found herself teaching a class with a single student, which, she said, "can be awkward."

Educators say the challenges make them work harder for the kids.

"We have to help resolve conflicts" between students, said Arsenault, of Fishers Island. "There's no other class to put them in."

As far as diversity, some districts say they're seeing more of it, as children of area workers come to the schools.

In 2012-13 in Remsenburg-Speonk, the student population was 85% white, 10% Hispanic or Latino, 2% Black, and 2% Asian, native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, according to the state Department of Education. 

In 2022-23, the makeup was 66% white, 25% Hispanic or Latino, 7% multiracial, 2% Black and 1% Asian, native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, the agency said.

Last year was the first time Remsenburg-Speonk received federal Title I money, which is slated for low-income students. The school currently serves 125 students, officials said.

"Ten years ago we had 2% of our students who were socioeconomically disadvantaged. Now it's 35%," said Sullivan, the superintendent / principal, adding that the district received $40,000 in Title I funds toward its overall budget of $16 million.

However, several of these districts — because of their small size and the relative wealth in some — receive little in state aid or federal COVID money.

In Wainscott, a South Fork hamlet in East Hampton Town, the district received no COVID aid and $454,866 in state aid in the 2023-24 school year. Its contingency budget was $4.8 million. The average home value is $2.8 million, according to the real estate company Zillow.

"Our budget is 97% funded by taxpayer money," said Eagan, the school board president.

Students in focus, but fewer opportunities

It's Monday morning, the start of a new week in the Oysterponds district, and Joanne Simicich is asking her class of 17 fifth- and sixth-graders the Morning Question: What’s your favorite book?

Fifth-grader Diana Gromul, who loves to read, says “A Wrinkle in Time.”

“It’s a really nice book. It’s also a movie,” says the 11-year-old. “It’s about a girl who needs to find her father. She faces a lot of obstacles to find her father.”

Diana said she likes being in a small school district. “It’s really nice. You know every single person. It’s fun to see them every day,” she said.

After the morning discussion, Simicich's students turn to sharpening their writing skills, learning where to put commas in sentences or, as Diana says, “punctuation and stuff.”

When it’s time for math, the sixth-graders separate themselves into another room down the hall to learn about geometry. That class is cutting shapes out of paper and learning how to name them, such as a triangle, pentagon and rectangle. 

Jaelynn Undel, 11, said she enjoys the work. Jaelynn had been in the Southold district until third grade, which, while not the size of a district such as 6,000-student Brentwood, is still considerably larger, with 720 students.

“In Southold, the teacher couldn’t focus on one student. It was really complicated,” she said.

Both students say they’re aware that Oysterponds doesn’t have all the offerings of larger districts. Jaelynn likes to run and wishes the school had a track. Also, while the school has a lunchroom, it doesn’t serve meals. The kids bring their own lunch, though every Friday the school offers pizza.

Oysterponds doesn’t have a formal drama club, but once a year a theater company comes in and helps the kids put on a show. They recently put on “Blackbeard the Pirate,” and Jaelynn got to play the titular lead, dark beard and all.

“Blackbeard is really tough,” she said, “so I got to boss everybody around."

A community focal point 

While these schools may look like something out of a time capsule, from long ago, they persevere because they fit their communities, educators say.

The small schoolhouse in Remsenburg-Speonk — with its two main hallways and two basketball hoops on the playground — fits in with the area's small post office, gas stations and stores. 

A contrast is seen in the sizes of homes, often grand and spacious, and the generous amount of space between them.

Student populations have grown and diminished over time in these districts but remain small by comparison to the sprawling suburban districts that fill Long Island. Consider that Baldwin has 4,461 students, Bellmore-Merrick has 5,200 and East Meadow has 7,862, according to state Education Department figures for the 2022-23 school year. Several small-district educators said they saw bumps in enrollment during the pandemic, but much of that has receded as families moved back to the Big Apple.

People in these places say they like the local control they have over their kids' education, especially during the formative years of elementary school. The school districts, some that go back 100 years or more, are central cogs in their communities, places where residents go for entertainment, meetings and to vote.

Andreoli, the second-grade teacher in Remsenburg-Speonk, has seen the value of the school as a student, parent and teacher. She attended growing up, and her two daughters also passed through its doors, she said.

"We work together," she said of the staff. "If a teacher is doing a unit on dinosaurs, the art teacher will have the students make little aluminum dinosaurs. The music teacher will have them sing dinosaur songs."

Asked if she felt her daughters missed out on any education, Andreoli shot down the notion.

"We have foreign language studies, extra help, marimba band, chorus, a garden club, an art club — so no," she said.

With Michael Ebert

By Craig Schneider

craig.schneider@newsday.com@Scraigo

Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.