Petrova Elementary School is one of the three Saranac Lake school buildings a team of consultants have written a report on. The report suggests closing Bloomingdale Elementary School, a weighty decision the board is starting to discuss. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — The Saranac Lake Central School District Board of Education may assemble a committee to discuss the future of Bloomingdale Elementary School after a consulting firm recommended closing the school in the 2027-28 school year.

The consultants cited declining local population and school enrollment in their suggestion.

On Wednesday, SLCSD board Chair Mark Farmer promised Bloomingdale residents the board will meet at their school to discuss the hot-button issue. As “key stakeholders” of the board’s decisions, he said they should listen to them.

“It might be the most important thing we do for the next decade,” Farmer said.

He said the decision will take months to years of discussion.

Though he said it needs a lot of thought and discussion, he added that it should not drag on, either. The district paid for this study, got the information and should use it to discuss future decisions. He added that the board is not held to the closure option.

“Just because it’s in the report, that doesn’t mean that’s what we have to do,” Farmer said. “We’ll have to decide for our community.”

Last year, the district commissioned a building enrollment feasibility study from the educational consulting firm Alliance Education Associates. That report is finalized now.

Draft Facilities Study for Staff

Farmer said the board should talk about the process for moving forward, a roadmap for looking at the suggestions from the firm they hired.

Bloomingdale leaders and parents have been concerned about the possible closure of the school since the first part of the report was released.

Discussion of the possibility this spring led three Bloomingdale residents to run for the school board, though they were not able to beat out the three incumbent candidates for the seats.

Davina Thurston, the town supervisor for St. Armand, which holds the hamlet of Bloomingdale, attended several school board meetings to advocate for the school. She said it’s a reason people move to Bloomingdale, a resource for families living in the largest geographic school district in the state and an employer for the growing hamlet.

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Recommendations

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The consultants said that the district could reconfigure in the 2027-28 school year to close Bloomingdale Elementary and move the students going there to Petrova Elementary to save on costs. At that time, Petrova’s enrollment is projected to be small enough to accommodate the additional students.

The two elementary schools have a faster rate of enrollment decline than the middle or high school

This year, the district is projecting 295 students at Petrova and 99 at Bloomingdale. In 2012, it had 345 students at Petrova and 199 at Bloomingdale. In 2019, there were 377 students at Petrova and 108 at Bloomingdale.

The projected Petrova enrollment in the year the closure is being suggested is 236 and Bloomingdale is projected at 112.

At the Wednesday meeting, Farmer proposed creating a committee to discuss the suggestions from the consultants. He suggested the committee be comprised of board of education members, administrators, teachers, staff, community members and parents, adding that he personally wants to be on the committee. The board will discuss if they want to do this at the next meeting on Sept. 11.

Board member Nancy Bernstein recalled the many public sessions the district held to create its red-tailed hawk mascot last year — the bird will take roost in the district when school starts next week. Bernstein said this decision should have a similar extensive public process.

Board members also said they wanted the consultants to call into this meeting so they can ask them questions about the report and it’s creation.

Board member Zachary Randolph wondered if the consultants have examples of other schools of similar size they’ve consulted for and how they made their decisions. He said he wants context for their recommendations.

Board member Joe Henderson said a lot rests on if the consultant’s projections will be accurate.

That’s the biggest unknown, Farmer said. Ultimately, he’s hoping for growth in student population. But most of the factors determining that are out of their control.

Bernstein said it would be a loss to close Bloomingdale Elementary, and that they need to determine what’s best for the children of the district.

Board member Tori Thurston said with the state expected to reduce its aid to districts like SLCSD, the question is not if they’ll be losing money, but how much.

She said that board should take what residents want seriously, but that they also need to take the district’s financials seriously.

Farmer said it is not good for the kids if the school struggles financially.

The consultants say the closure would come with cost reductions estimated at $1.4 million because of less building maintenance, and less staff salaries and benefits. The district still has $1.1 million in debt on past building projects there, so the study projects a $300,000 net potential cost savings.

Bloomingdale Elementary is the district’s newest building and is in the best shape.

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Consolidation pitched

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If Bloomingdale Elementary closes, the consultants proposed two options — maintain the middle school and high school locations by adding sixth grade to the Petrova-based middle school in addition to seventh and eighth grades, or move seventh and eighth grades to the high school building.

The consultants suggested the second option.

They said the first option would put both the middle school and high school below the recommended 300-student threshold for effective schools at that time.

The second option is recommended to occur in the 2030-31 school year.

Under this, the Petrova location would hold kindergarten through sixth grade and the high school location would hold seventh through 12th grades and be called a “junior-senior high school.” This would make both buildings meet the 300-student threshold.

The consultants said this would result in savings by eliminating the middle school administrative staff.

They recommend relocating the district administrative offices from the high school building to the first or third floor of Petrova to make room for special ed and other small learning spaces at the high school.

To accommodate the larger number of people in the high school building, the consultants propose a staggered schedule with one group of teachers in the building from the first to ninth period, and a second group in the building from homeroom, before the second period, to the 10th period.

This would give students the option to take additional classes and be in the building from the first to the 10th period.

This is a “unique” schedule, they said, and few districts use it, but they thought it could be an “innovative” approach.

This would also require a re-configuring of physical education, music, art, lunch, transportation and electives.

It would be a longer day for administrators, security and clerical workers, so the consultants suggested staggering their hours, too.

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What of the building?

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If Bloomingdale Elementary is closed, the district would have several options for what to do with the building — it could keep it unoccupied, sell it or lease it.

The consultants suggested the Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES (program), housed at the Adirondack Educational Center on state Route 3 between Saranac Lake and Bloomingdale, could use the building for future career and technical education programs and regional special education programs.

If the district keeps the building unoccupied it would still be tax-exempt, but the district would still pay to maintain the building, and it would likely not be eligible for state aid for improvements.

If the building is sold or leased to a government or organization like BOCES, there would be no impact on the tax exempt status of the district’s existing bonds for previous building improvements.

If it is sold to a not for profit group, that status may be preserved if certain conditions are met.

If it is sold to a private corporation or individual, the district would be required to use the proceeds of the sale to pay off this debt within 90 days. There would also be requirements on the sale price.

The downside to selling the building, the consultants said, is if there is an unexpected increase in the school population in the future, the district may need a new building for more students.

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Population decline

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This spring, SLCSD Superintendent Diane Fox went on a “tour” of local government boards with the preliminary findings of the study to share them with community leaders.

The population of the district decreased by 5% from 2010 to 2020 and is projected to decrease another 6.5% by 2030 before stabilizing. The SLCSD area population in 2010 was 20,631. In 2020, it was 19,595. Projections put the population at 18,576 this year — an estimated loss of 1,000 in five years compared to the previous loss of around 1,000 in the prior 10 years.

The study shows SLCSD having decreased enrollment in every grade level, every year. There has been a slower decline in the high school than in the elementary schools so far.

Total district enrollment decreased by 9.56% over the past five years and it was down 2.3% in 2023 from 2022.

Fox said SLCSD had 1,616 students enrolled in 2003-04 and 1,140 last year. The consultants expect this trend to continue for several years before stabilizing at lower numbers.

But school enrollment has dropped in part because the district has seen a much more severe drop in the number of people born here than before.

Birth rates in the district have decreased by 28% between 2010 and 2020, according to the study — from 107 in 2010 to 77 in 2020. Birth rates broke 100 nearly every year between 2004 and 2011. But since then, birth rates haven’t cracked 90 and have been in the mid-70s on several occasions.

This can be seen in the kindergarten enrollment, which was at 96 in 2012 and 53 in 2023.

Fox said births have been “steady” in recent years, but kindergarten enrollment is still going down. She said private school kindergarten enrollment is staying steady, so that does not account for the change. She said that she does not know where they are going.

Randolph said the board is reacting to what’s happening in the area — the decline in school enrollment and the affordable housing crisis.

He said the board is obligated to do that. He wanted to see if the community is open to it, adding that he does not want the process to be adversarial.

In the spring, SLCSD board member Justin Garwood said all the data tells the same story — families are not supported enough here.

Fox described what she calls a “three-legged stool” — with the legs being job, daycare and house. Without all three of these supporting a family, it falls.

Locally, Fox said it’s shortages of all three legs in terms of quality and affordability driving the youth population decline. Many young families cannot afford to move, stay or start here, she said.

The district closed and sold its Lake Colby Elementary School in 2011 and its Lake Clear School in 2009.