Dozens rally to keep Baldwin schools open

Outraged Baldwin parents demanded Wednesday night that all the district's schools remain open for business after a task force recommended two elementary schools be closed to bridge a budget shortfall.

Parents stepped up to a microphone at a packed meeting at Baldwin Middle School to offer a variety of reasons why the school board should reject the Facilities Review Task Force's main finding: that the Shubert School and either the Steele or Milburn schools be shut.

"No school should be closed," said Jonathan Logan, a New York City firefighter who appeared at the lectern with his 2-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter to address the school board, garnering applause. "You're trying to close schools to limit the education of our young people. Let's just do the right thing."

Other speakers questioned whether the task force had considered all available options, or whether the task force itself was plagued by the biases of its members, and they urged the school board to find creative ways to avoid closing schools.

The task force is made up of district residents, PTA officers and employees.

Ahead of the task force's 8 p.m. presentation, dozens of parents and children marched in a circle outside of the school and chanted "Save our schools" and distributed literature, including a petition requesting the schools remain open. Some carried placards reading "Keep Baldwin Whole," demanding school officials find other ways to save money.

"We don't want to see schools close or programs cut," said Jenny Clavin, whose children are in the fourth, eighth and 10th grades. "We believe they can find the money in the budget."

Clavin, a member of Concerned Parents of Baldwin, distributed a palm card with a list of "Save Our Schools Rally Facts" that summarized several alternatives to closing schools, including examining the bus program and pension fund, considering bonds and consolidating district office positions.

The district is confronting millions of dollars in budget deficits, falling state aid, declining enrollment and capped property-tax increases.

Shubert's enrollment is at about 35 percent of capacity and it needs expensive upgrades, while most of the other six elementary schools in the district, including Milburn and Steele, are at about 50 percent capacity, said a member of the task force, which began meeting in October.

The board will announce its decisions on school closings and other program or staff cuts at a Feb. 8 school board meeting, with the final budget adoption set for Feb. 15.

The public can attend budget work sessions on Feb. 1 and Feb. 15 at district offices, and on Feb. 8 at the Plaza School before the board meeting.

District spokeswoman Cristina Schmohl said the board is "looking at many, many options. This is not a decision they're making lightly."

Board members and district administrators will review the task force recommendations "in fine detail" before finalizing the district's proposed budget for 2012-13, she said.

Shrinking budgets and declining enrollment are leading to a growing number of closures across the Island for public and private schools.

Some districts are considering other configurations, such as clustering elementary school students by grade level rather than neighborhood, as a way to save money.

Fanita Henderson, PTA president at Shubert, where her daughter is in fourth grade, and a member of the task force, said neighbors fear a mothballed school building could depress property values and invite vagrants. She said an outside professional consultant, with no self-interest in which of the district's schools or programs are cut, should have evaluated schools' capacity rather than the dozen members of the task force.

She stood up at the podium and claimed that the task force had "exceeded its mandate in making recommendations that specific schools close and requested the district go back to the proverbial drawing board.

"You need to go back to the data," she said.

Earlier in the day, she said: "We as a community understand that something has to be done. What we're asking for is thoughtful consideration about what is being done and transparency when it comes to the budget. It's more to us than just a school building. It's part of our community."

Tracy Mahler, PTA president at Milburn and co-chair of the task force, said she hopes school closings would be a board action of last resort, given the community impact.

She said the board could save $600,000 a year by reassigning several hundred students who live closer to the Steele and Milburn schools rather than continuing to bus them to a school farther away.

In any case, she said, school closings are "a Band-Aid on the problem. We as a district can't keep up with the pensions and health care of the employees. Closing a school is a one-time fix."

Lenore Rust, who has two sons at Steele, said, "We're hopefully optimistic that the board will find other options to pursue than closing Steele and Milburn."

The trend of declining enrollment in the Island’s elementary schools is not expected to abate in the near future. While the number of high school students rose over the past decade, both Nassau and Suffolk had fewer younger schoolchildren, according to estimates from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Local experts have said the overall school population peaked in 2004 and has shifted to a slow but steady decline since then.

The Lindenhurst and Mineola districts already closed schools. District boards in North Bellmore and West Islip have voted to close elementary schools in June, and the board is Smithtown is slated to vote next month on shuttering a grammar school at the end of this school year.

In addition, the Diocese of Rockville Centre plans to close six Roman Catholic elementary schools in June, a move that has drawn strong protests from parents.