SARANAC LAKE — A group of eight school officials, teachers and community members met on Wednesday to start discussing the future of the Saranac Lake Central School District.

As the district’s enrollment continues to shrink, the school board set up this advisory committee to make recommendations to the board on how to be more efficient with the taxpayer money they have to educate the next generation.

The committee will discuss potential building closures, staffing size, distribution of students and staff, optimization of bus routes and classes offerings.

The committee has eight members — four from the school and four from the community, who were selected by the school board from a pool of around a dozen applicants.

SLCSD board Chair Mark Farmer also chairs the committee. Karen Miemis, the parent of a ninth grader and 12th grader in district, is a sixth grade teacher and co-president of the Saranac Lake Teachers Association. Nancy Bernstein is an SLCSD board member and the parent of a graduate. Scott McKim is the parent of a second grader at Bloomingdale Elementary and has a background in education. Suzanne Miller is a retired SLCSD teacher and the parent of a graduate. Davina Thurston is the St. Armand town supervisor, where Bloomingdale Elementary is located, and the parent of two SLCSD graduates. Mike Martin is a school board member, the parent of five students attending or graduated from the district and teaches building trades at the BOCES Adirondack Educational Center just outside of town. Diane Fox is the district superintendent.

Members of the committee can be contacted by email at bernstenan@slcs.org, farmermar@slcs.org, foxdia@slcs.org, martinmic@slcs.org, mckimsco@slcs.org, miemiskar@slcs.org, millersuz@slcs.org, thurstodav@slcs.org and pollockgin@slcs.org.

This effort stems out of a report the district got last summer from an educational consulting firm, which recommended closing Bloomingdale Elementary School in the 2027-28 school year and moving the students to Petrova Elementary to save on costs. At that time, Petrova’s enrollment is projected to be small enough to accommodate the additional students.

This idea was controversial, especially among Bloomingdale residents, and the board initially planned to set up a committee to digest the report and make a recommendation to the board. It held off on that committee and created this one, a broader one with a more expansive scope looking at the district’s entire operation.

Farmer said the board would not close a school as a “knee-jerk decision” to a report. They decided to look at the district operations as a whole.

This is an advisory committee for the board. The board makes the final decision on whether or not to accept the proposal.

Farmer has repeatedly said this will likely be the biggest decision the board makes for the district’s future in the next decade.

Not everyone will be satisfied with what happens, but they’ll do their best, he said.

SLCSD student enrollment dipped below 1,000 for the first time in decades on opening day earlier this month. Meanwhile, the cost of running schools continues to rise each year as things get more expensive and schools need to do more to meet modern education requirements.

For example, Farmer said school buildings have much more room than they did years ago when enrollment was higher. But school buildings are used differently now. Cramped classrooms are out and new advancements in special education are in.

When the district budgeted last spring, its “rollover budget” from the previous year was $2.7 million higher than the projected revenue. The approved budget raised taxes and reduced staff to level out the budget. Fox said the insurance costs for staff were way up.

Fox also said many locals with family properties that their ancestors bought decades ago “for a song” are struggling to keep up with increased taxes.

The district has many people they try to please — taxpayers, students, teachers, parents, staff and other community members.

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Focuses

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This committee will meet monthly — typically on Wednesdays between school board meetings, with a few Thursdays — with each month focusing on a different aspect of the district’s operations.

Auxiliary members — including principals, transportation staff and business office staff — will come and go for different meetings, depending on when their expertise is needed.

The committee will hold meetings at each of the district’s buildings, and tour them as well.

At the October meeting, Transportation Supervisor Dave Whitson will give a transportation proposal and Business Executive Nikki Sears will show the cost of running each building. The members have requested maps of each building, as well as the schedules for each building’s daily classes.

High School Principal Josh Dann said the district should not hesitate to reconfigure. The district’s done it before.

Farmer has said the plan is to wrap up the committee in the spring. Dann pointed out that may be too late to make a big change for next year’s school season in the fall, since the district starts budgeting in the winter and whatever recommendations the committee makes will impact the budget.

Miemis said her focus will be on programming, curriculum, teaching methods and classroom space — making sure teachers have the space they need for all of the programs they run.

Bernstein said her focus is on busing, especially for those living in “outer Mongolia” — the far reaches of the largest school district in the state, by geographic area. Some students can live as far as 20 miles away from the schools.

She also wants to analyze the costs of running, closing or holding onto Bloomingdale Elementary. If the board chooses to close the school, she said it could sell it or hold onto it for a decade to see if enrollment goes back up.

Bernstein also said she wants to investigate if they should have a middle-high school model or a junior-senior high school model, as well as a primary school option — keeping Bloomingdale as a K-2 school.

Over the summer, Fox made the decision to relocate the third, fourth and fifth grade classrooms at Bloomingdale to Petrova. The district needed to cut one classroom amid staffing cuts, funding shrinkage and declining student enrollment. This has temporarily made Bloomingdale a pre-K to second-grade school.

McKim said his focus will be on the educational, community and financial impacts of the eventual decisions they make.

Miller said her focus will be on special education. Spreading out these services over multiple buildings is hard to do properly. Farmer also said these programs are largely funded by federal dollars. That money could get lost at any point in the current political climate, he said, so they need to be prepared for things not going to plan.

Thurston said she wants to focus on classroom setup.

Martin said his focus will be on having equity between the buildings — making sure students get the same support and programs whichever elementary school they go to.

Future committee meetings are scheduled on Oct. 15. Nov. 19, Dec. 18, Jan. 21, Feb. 18, March 18, April 16, May 21 and June 18.

Meetings will be open to the public to attend, but will not have a public comment session and will not be streamed online like the school board’s meetings. Minutes from the meetings will be taken and posted online afterwards at tinyurl.com/2d4mh9fm.

Farmer said there will be numerous times for public input at hearings and community cafes.

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Enrollment data

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The district reported 984 students enrolled on opening day this year — 60 fewer than reported on opening day last year. The district has been experiencing a long, slow student decline for several decades now. In the 2014-15 school year, the district had 1,266 students. At the turn of the millennium, it had 1,743 students. Back in the 1970s, enrollment broke 2,000.

The district closed and sold its Lake Colby Elementary School in 2011, its Lake Clear School in 2009, its Broadway Elementary School on Broadway in 1974 and its River Street School in 1967.

Fox said the declining class sizes have been a concern for around a decade. Her first presentation on the issue was in 2014. The board started talking about adjusting where district resources were going in 2019. The coronavirus pandemic stalled that work.

The kindergarten class of 43 this year is down from 68 last year. There are around 43 universal pre-K students in the district this year, with more at daycare. Fox said this should bring the kindergarten numbers back to normal next year.

The district has around 100 students who are in private schools.

Homeschool numbers were in the 40s in the early 2000s, then dropped down to the 20s in the 2010s. They spiked during the pandemic, reaching as high as 86 in 2020, and then settled in recent years. There is a slight decrease in homeschool students this year compared to last year — from 52 to 46.

The overall increase in homeschooling is a statewide change in the past decade, Fox said. Homeschool enrollment statewide has risen 178% between 2013 and 2023, according to the independent think tank Empire Center for Public Policy. Meanwhile, New York public school enrollment has dropped 13% in that time period.