Students eat lunch in the cafeteria at North Rockland High...

Students eat lunch in the cafeteria at North Rockland High School in Thiells. North Rockland High School was recently re-organized after the district was forced to restructure as a result of a shrinking tax base. One big change involved moving ninth-graders from North Rockland Middle Schools to the high school, leading to more crowded lunch periods and hallways. (May 10, 2013) Credit: Angela Gaul

Almost 2,600 students stream through the hallways of North Rockland High School when classes change, their massed voices thundering as they pass through the school's main lobby to head to the library or lunch room.

There are almost 700 more students in the school than were there this time last year, an entire class of freshmen now roaming halls where there were no freshmen a year ago.

That is just one of the big changes the district engineered as an answer to devastating financial setbacks. In six years, it cut more than $60 million from its budget. Last September ribbons were cut to welcome students to newly-reorganized elementary, upper elementary, middle and high schools.

The result? It's working, says Superintendent Ileana Eckert.

So well, in fact, that educators in other Hudson Valley districts have begun discussing North Rockland as a kind of model of efficiency in the face of diminished funding.

"I guess that's the real miracle of North Rockland," Eckert said. "That we've been able to reinvent ourselves a little bit differently every year."

DISTRICT FACED FINANCIAL DISASTER

No one wanted to close schools, or redistrict, or uproot hundreds of teachers and students; but the district found itself in one of the deepest financial holes ever encountered in the Hudson Valley region, Eckert said.

In 2006, the Atlanta-based Mirant Corp. prevailed in a lawsuit over taxes on two power plants it operates in the district. The company received a settlement entitling it to repayment of some $274 million in tax overcharges.

To pay the company off, the district sold some $190 million in bonds, which over 30 years will cost taxpayers $353 million. Each year, there's $11.5 million in the budget that does nothing but pay off the debt.

School board president Deborah Gatti said that the settlement with Mirant threw the district into a tailspin.

"Oh my gosh," Gatti said. "For a while there, the community was in free fall, because Mirant was just so devastating to the community. It was major shift in who pays the taxes."

The crisis grew worse with the Wall Street crash of 2008 and the historic cut to state school aid that followed. Over the next five school years, the district cut about 250 positions. The cuts came to a climax in the 2011-12 school year, when an additional 70 positions were cut.

At that point, Eckert had had it.

"I couldn't be faced with doing that a second year," Eckert said. "I said 'We have to start thinking outside of the box.'"

OPPORTUNITY IN CRISIS

In ensuing months, school leaders held meetings.

How many?

"Oof, holy moly," was high school principal Michael Gill's response, on that one.

While looking to pinch pennies, stakeholders found opportunities to improve. They had four elementary schools feeding three middle schools, with the result that groups of friends were often broken up in the fifth grade. They had a high school with no freshmen, with the result that ninth-graders thought less about college.

"We also said OK this is an opportunity," Eckert said. "How do we also make ourselves a little stronger academically on the way?"

At a summer institute for principals, about seven months into the discussions, a model was chosen. Elementary schools would host kindergarten through third grades, upper elementaries fourth through sixth grades, the middle school seventh and eighth grades, and the high school all four upper grades.

The plan involved changes to every single school -- and closed two elementary schools.

Those decisions hit home, even for the leaders making them.

Gatti's daughter attended the now-shuttered North Garnerville Elementary School, a school Gatti describes as "this magical little school" that no one wanted to close.

"I heard her say every single day, 'I can't believe you're going to close my school,'" Gatti said. "It's devastating. You lose a tremendous amount of sleep. It was very hard for people and we understood that."

The disruption was massive.

"It was a tremendous undertaking," Gill said.

SPENDING SLICED DRASTICALLY

In all, the district has slashed some $60 million in spending from the budget of $185 million that was in place when the Mirant case went wrong.

The cuts:

• Staff was reduced by almost 25 percent over six years, saving $54.6 million annually.

• Refinancing debt: $4.5 million annually

• Transportation redesign (changing school start and end times, cooperating with other districts), which saved about $1.8 million annually

• Operational savings accountable to district overhaul and closing of two schools, about $3.7 million annually, plus one-time $2.3 million savings in maintenance

• Renegotiating health care costs, which saved about $5 million annually.

OPENING DAY FOR THE REVAMPED DISTRICT

Over the summer of 2012, the district moved some 570 pallets of furniture and equipment, shuttling the contents of hundreds of classrooms around town. About 60 percent of the staff were slated to teach in a new location in September.

The September opening of the high school was nerve-wracking for Gill. He worried that a much larger crowd of kids would clog the hallways as they chatted outside the gym or headed to their lockers to get books.

"It was tough the first couple of days," Gill said.

But as issues floated to the top, staff found solutions, he said.

Signs went up in the hallways: "Don't Block the Boys Block."

There were some new rules: Use your locker only when you need to.

The result is a high school where seniors say they feel proud to be mentors to ninth-graders, with a freshman class more geared toward college, and far fewer disciplinary referrals among freshmen than the same group produced in years past, officials say.

"It's definitely a lot more crowded," said Deanna Brigandi, a 17-year-old senior from Stony Point. "But it gives us more patience, it makes them (freshman) more mature, and it makes us more mature too, because we have to really set an example for them to follow."

AN IMPROVEMENT, IN SOME WAYS

In the middle and high schools, parents and educators say that sports and after-school programs are now operating more smoothly with the reorganized grades. Lorraine Aylmer, a guidance counselor and mother of three North Rockland students, said her children get to participate in more after-school activities, because they don't have to be shuttled across town.

"I'm not going to lie to you to say everyone was happy about this at first. But, after a year, we went back and asked people ... and I think people are happy," Eckert said.

Well maybe not everyone.

Diego Aviles, a resident who often rises at school board meetings to offer input from a taxpayer perspective, said he is disappointed that the changes didn't save more money.

"I think it was the right thing to do to try and work smarter," said Aviles, whose children attend private school and were not affected by the change. "But I think people in the community were hoping it would save us more money."

Eckert said other education leaders now look to her district for solutions, as they face financial pressures from the state tax cap and restricted state aid.

She cautions that North Rockland is not out of the woods yet.

Pressures remain. On Tuesday, North Rockland voters will head to the polls to vote on a new school budget. The $203 million plan on the ballot brings with it a 3.6 percent tax increase and cuts 11.4 jobs.

And there are program reductions -- to chorus and band, to guidance and clubs.

But a lot of special programs are preserved. For example, the district still has a vibrant Junior ROTC program, as well as an accomplished drill team, programs that have fallen to cuts in other districts, Gill said.

Gatti, the school board president, says she feels her district has much to offer, in the way of advice about economizing.

"You have to know your district and you have to be very up front with your public about why you're doing what you're doing," Gatti said. "People didn't like it, but people understood it. And it think people felt relieved that we were willing to go out on a limb and try and do something different."

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