_{An occasional source of opinion, editorial comment and political commentary on matters affecting residents of the Village of South Nyack.}

Pay Up!

Nyack School Board Demands South Nyack Residents Subsidize Upper Nyack and Valley Cottage!

On December 4, 2012, the elected Trustees of the Nyack School Board unanimously voted to NOT implement a plan that would have saved the School District and its residents approximately $1.5 million.

It was a plan that saved us all money and was education neutral. That's right, they passed on an opportunity to save money that did not affect the quality of education being received by the elementary children in the School District.

This decision has the following consequences:

1. The School District cannot consider ending outsourcing the education of many Special Education children who live in our community to other districts. These children remain segregated from the other children in communities in which they live and are bused long distances to other schools in other school districts! A practice that Dr. James Montesano, Superintendent of Schools in the Nyack Union Free School District was hoping to end with the savings that were to be generated from implementation of the plan.

2. That the School District budget will have to increase by at least $1.5 million to pay for this decision, because the money cannot be used to actually educate our children!

3. The District Administration gets to keep their class room sized offices. Generous spaces that we all pay for, when they could have had smaller offices in another school facility allowing the School District to rent or sell the administration complex on Dickinson Avenue, South Nyack easing the burden on the community.

You, Rent & School Taxes

All residents of the Village of South Nyack pay property taxes to the Nyack Union Free School District as voted by the School Board Trustees. It does not matter if you rent or own a residence, either your landlord or you are making those payments. The Nyack School District taxes on each home represent over 65% of the total property tax burden.

If you rent, think how much lower your montly rent might be if the School District taxes on your landlord's property were not so high.

The Decision: A District Divided by Wealth & Privilege

The decision was made to ensure that the wealthy, privileged, overwhelmingly white communities of Valley Cottage and Upper Nyack in Clarkestown were able to retain their local neighborhood elementary schools so that their children could have the convenience of walking to school.

In Upper Nyack, over 45% of the households have incomes greater than $125,000 per year; 24% over $200,000 compared with just 6% of New York State residents.

This decision benefits the 1% entirely.

Upper Nyack and Valley Cottage communities even ran a selfish, self-centered campaign through a Facebook page: "Let's keep the neighborhoods in our schools."Nyack-Piermont Patch October 4, 2012

South Nyack Residents have no elementary schools in OUR neighborhood!

Broken Promises & Denied Engagement

All South Nyack Residents living east of Route 9W and south of Main Street lost the opportunity to be engaged in the community outreach meetings when Sandy canceled the Nyack Center Meeting of October 30, 2012. How convenient for the School District as they have claimed that they were unable to find any other available date to meet with our community before the date they had picked for a vote by the School Board. A completely arbitrary date.

They could have delayed the vote if they really cared what we in South Nyack actually thought. Or they could have asked the Village of South Nyack permission to hold the meeting for South Nyack Residents in the Village court house at the fire station where we have community meetings. The School Board found it more convenient to deny us this opportunity.

The School District had promised to engage the community in a discussion on this decision. Michael S. Mark, School Board Vice President, is quoted, "It would be irresponsible for any board member to act without significant input for something like this. We need everybody’s input." Nyack-Piermont Patch October 4, 2012.

I guess he meant everybody's input EXCEPT those of us in South Nyack.

Elected School Board Trustees Karen Hughes, James Marshall, Claudette Jimerson, Dan Kaplan, Dan Juechter and Leeann Irvin all had election platforms based on improving communication between the School Board and the community.

Leeann Irvin: "The upcoming budget decisions necessitate a higher standard of disclosure on behalf of the Board of Education to all the members of our district. As a Board member, I will reach out to the people who have elected me for input throughout the whole decision process. I will encourage communication by whatever means is appropriate and practical to help address and change the current perception that the Board is making decisions without responding to large segments of the community." Nyack-Piermont Patch May 10, 2011.

Claudette Jimerson: "As a school board member we must always remember that we represent the people in our community. We must be willing to listen, learn and always keep the main focus on the children we are educating." Nyack-Piermont Patch May 10, 2011.

James Marshall: "The other things: most of the community feels the board could dramatically improve communication with the general public, improve the format of board meetings and improve communication with various bargaining units."Nyack-Piermont Patch May 10, 2011.

Dan Kaplan: "As a Board member I will need to listen, work to bring these constituencies together, and ensure that discussions and debates are transparent and inclusive." Nyack-Piermont Patch May 10, 2012

Karen Hughes: "The widening communication gap between the board and the community cannot be continued. Since I have been campaigning, I am disturbed by the constant comment, "I don't trust the board." Unless we mend this rift, the community's willingness to support the schools will decline and educational quality will suffer. I've always believed that there is absolutely no harm in over-communicating, and it is incumbent upon the board to ensure that our communication is effective." & "We need to be able to clearly articulate to our taxpayers how their tax dollars are being spent and what the expected outcome is for their investment." Nyack-Piermont Patch May 14, 2012

Dan Juechter: "Community input is essential to all decisions. It is time to allow the voice of the community to be heard." And it gets better. "If elected, I promise to promote academic excellence by demanding that all initiatives relate to improving academic excellence among all students." http://www.danjuechter.com/DanJuechter4NyackSchools.pdf.

None of them seemed that interested in communicating with OUR community.

They advocate and support initiatives unrelated to academic quality.

They say anything to get elected.

Guess what? We still don't trust the School Board and with good reason.

They do NOT care what we think. They just want us to pay for a non-educational social decision for other communities.

We were DENIED the opportunity to learn about the plan, the alternatives, and the costs to us if it was not implemented.

Inequality & Punishing South Nyack's Children

The community that makes up the Village of South Nyack is the most diverse and with the highest proportion of renters in the Nyack School District.

South Nyack Residents do not have a local elementary school. The School Board voted to remove the nearest one on Liberty Street in Nyack over 40 years ago. The School Board has chosen and continues to support carving up our little Village. Our youngest children get arbitrarily bused to distant elementary schools. Some children get bused the long distance to Valley Cottage, a distant community in another town; others get bused to Liberty Elementary School, also in Valley Cottage; and the remainder get bused to Upper Nyack, two villages away in another town.

Yes, that's right. Valley Cottage has two of the three elementary schools in the district.

Many of our Special Education students get bused completely out of the School District to other schools! At great expense. Both financially to the tax payer and more importantly, to those children who are denied membership in our schools' community. Denied attending school with their neighbors and friends.

The children of the Village of South Nyack go to different elementary schools from their neighbors and friends.

Yet it was opposition to having children in Upper Nyack and Valley Cottage sharing this same experience that was embraced by the School Board.

It is fine to carve up and shred our community in South Nyack, but let's not have a level playing field for all elementary children in the School District.

And to make it worse, force South Nyack Residents, those in the School District who can least afford it, to continue to subsidize this convenience for the Upper Nyack and Valley Cottage communities.

In fact, the School Board has a long history in forcing other communities to subsidize privileges only available to the children of Upper Nyack, which includes providing a school bus service to Upper Nyack Elementary School to children resident in Upper Nyack who live less than, very much less than the required one mile from the school.

Yet, this community opposed the plan to to re-align enrollment among the elementary schools in the School District because they claimed that they wanted their children to walk to a local school with their neighbors!

Bad luck to all those other children who live outside of Upper Nyack and less than a mile from that school. They get to have a really long walk to school with their neighbors! No extension of the bus privileges for them!

Building Barriers to Voting

For the past 20 years or so, the School District has existed only to serve the residents of the hamlet of Valley Cottage and the Village of Upper Nyack in the Town of Clarkstown. Valley Cottage is not a river community and shares few characteristics with our communities.

But they vote.

Every elected School Board Trustee knows that they cannot get elected and cannot stay elected without the votes from Valley Cottage and Upper Nyack.

South Nyack has a low voter turnout at School Board elections, contributed by the absence of any voting location in the Village east of Route 9W and south of Cedar Hill Avenue.

We are compelled to travel to the Village of Nyack and vote in a location that has almost no parking and when a park can be found, we now have to pay the Village of Nyack parking meters.

The School District has deliberately put up barriers to our ability to get out and vote.

They have deliberately implemented voting practices to discourage our voters, especially the elderly, minorities, and the poor.

They just do not want us to vote.

We need a local version for this School District of the Voting Rights Act to expand community access to voting locations within our own community.

Breaking the Stranglehold?

In 2012 something special happened. For the first time in decades, Valley Cottage representation did not dominate the School Board. From South Nyack we had two local residents Dan Kaplan and James Marshall now on the board; Karen Hughes from Upper Nyack, Dan Juechter from Nyack; and Claudette Jimerson from Upper Grandview.

It represented an opportunity to create a more balanced decision process that provided equal opportunity to all the children in the School District and not just those from Valley Cottage and Upper Nyack.

Wrong.

Because all the School Board Trustees are dependent on Valley Cottage and Upper Nyack voters to remain elected they all sided with the needs of those privileged communities.

It was a unanimous School Board vote.

Do not let any of them try to convince you of their concern for OUR community. Any one or more of them could have voted against this.

Even our own local South Nyack residents on the School Board voted to continue this subsidy of non-educational benefits for Valley Cottage and Upper Nyack.

We were SOLD OUT.

Vote NO on the School District Budget

We all know what is coming. In a couple of months South Nyack Residents will be asked to vote again with the rest of the School District voters on a new budget. There will be a budget increase. They may even try to raise the budget above the State imposed limits.

Any increase will raise your rent and your property taxes.

South Nyack Residents must vote.

Everyone, renters and home owners must band together to vote down, vote against, vote NO to any Nyack School District budget that fails to include the implementation of the elementary school rationalization plan rejected at the December 4th vote.

The School Board needs to know that there is a cost in deciding to vote to support non-educational privileges of distant communities.

Rejecting the budget is the only way to attract their attention.

All our children deserve the right to be treated equally. We must put an end to political favors.

Enough

The School Board needs to hear from us that they may well make decisions to fund programs and activities for other wealthy and privileged communities that have nothing at all to do with education, but they cannot then ask us for more money so that these can be subsidized by South Nyack Residents.

The School Board is a taxing authority. They impose a property tax on every property across two hamlets, three villages, and two towns. They must be held accountable for making decisions that do not benefit children across the distict equally.

The December 4, 2012 vote was just not fair to South Nyack and our children.

Voting NO on the School District Budget in 2013 will not harm education, but the School Board and the privileged communities that benefit from its generosity will claim it will.

What harms education is diverting money from educational initiatives to support social initiatives at the expense of less well off Villages and communities within the School District.

Until they eliminate such waste, they should be denied extra money.

Change the School Board: Vote Them Out!

Vote them out.

This decision shows the elected School Board Trustees in their true light. Getting elected and remaining elected at any cost remains their focus.

South Nyack Residents have no representation, no voice, and no advocates. That is clear. We have been abandoned by our own local representatives who we helped elect to the School Board.

If remaining elected is what is important to them, then deny them that.

We must vote AGAINST ALL current School Board Trustees.

Whomever is elected needs to understand that like Valley Cottage, we can be a powerful voting block. The power lies with removing people from office.

Find new candidates. Be a new candidate. Offer us a choice.

It does not matter who is elected. If we do not do this, then you can be sure that those elected will not care about South Nyack. About YOU.

We must keep voting them out until someone on that School Board gets the message.

And, for those of you with no children in the School District, whether you rent or own, the School District still gets your money. Did you know that most households in the School District have NO children attending any of the schools? The number is even higher among South Nyack Residents. You must vote and hold the Nyack School Board accountable.

Your hard earned income paid out in property taxes, either directly or through your rent, must go to strengthening education programs in the schools in the Nyack School District and not to subsidize unique social programs for the wealthy and privileged of Valley Cottage and Upper Nyack.

This is simple. These elected officials need to level the playing field for all children in the School District; focus all efforts on education; stop outsourcing our Special Education children; stop pandering to their core electorate by diverting money away from improving education; and represent all of us who live in the School District.