Bloomingdale Booster Club President Shauna Manning shares concerns with the Saranac Lake Central School District Board of Education in January about the coming vote to potentially close Bloomingdale Elementary School. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

BLOOMINGDALE — The Saranac Lake Central School District Board of Education will meet Wednesday to discuss three resolutions about the future of the district’s three school buildings.

One resolution would close Bloomingdale Elementary School and the Middle School, one resolution would shift the Middle School grades to the high school building and make Petrova Elementary a Pre-K-6 school and one resolution would consolidate the two morning and two afternoon bus runs into one morning and one afternoon bus run with students of all grade levels riding together.

The board will not vote on these resolutions on Wednesday. They are set to vote on these on Feb. 25.

The building facilities subcommittee, which has been studying the reconfiguration that the resolutions are proposing, has released its official thoughts on the best path forward. The report it generated shows division among the members.

Some committee members are criticizing the process, saying the goalposts have shifted, they weren’t given enough time to find alternatives and that the rushed decision will likely lead to public distrust.

One member is decidedly against the idea that closing Bloomingdale Elementary is best for the district. Six members believe, with heavy hearts, that closing the school is the best choice for the district. One member is not sharing his recommendation on the closure because he feels the process has been flawed from the start.

The subcommittee has eight members — five from the school, one retired teacher and two members from the community who were selected by the school board from a pool of around a dozen applicants.

The two community members are criticizing the process.

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

Most board members and committee members said, though it’s a hard decision, and one they don’t want to make, they believe closing the school will be most beneficial for the district as a whole.

SLCSD student enrollment dipped below 1,000 for the first time in decades this year. 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.

This year, the district shifted Bloomingdale students in grades three, four and five to Petrova Elementary, making the Bloomingdale school a K-2 building. Bloomingdale Elementary has 67 students currently.

The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the High School library through door No. 13. It will also be streamed live at tinyurl.com/2ba9csx8.

SLCSD Superintendent Diane Fox will share a formal recommendation of what to do. She’s indicated she feels closing Bloomingdale School is best for the district as a whole.

The subcommittee will meet on Feb. 18 to evaluate the proposed reconfiguration recommendations and hold a public hearing on those. The board will attend this meeting.

The public can continue to submit written comments about the potential closure and other district configuration issues until a decision is made. Comments should be emailed to the board clerk at pollockgin@slcs.org.

Members of the community are also weighing in with letters of opposition to the closure being submitted to the Enterprise.

Bloomingdale resident Ann Cantwell also created an online petition with several proposed uses of the building, asking the board to put the closure discussion up for a public vote, like the district did for the high school sports turf field in 2024. The petition at c.org/tYVT4FqdjY had gathered 346 signatures by press time on Monday.

The district held public hearings on the facilities reconfiguration last month. To read about these hearings, go to tinyurl.com/27etaf6t.

The state Education Department must approve whatever reconfiguration decision the board makes.

Fox said a closure would bring an overall districtwide reduction in staff numbers, but not many people losing their jobs. The committee’s report says teachers would mostly transfer over. Some staff positions — mostly cafeteria, custodial, clerical and administrative positions — would be eliminated, but the people currently working at Bloomingdale would likely still have a job with the district.

“Because we have several open positions that are not filled at the moment, those people would have the opportunity for a position somewhere else in the district,” Fox said.

–

Frustration

–

School board Member Justin Garwood said the emotional stories people are sharing are important, but, unfortunately, don’t help them make a decision to keep Bloomingdale Elementary open. They are making the decision based on data and need better numbers or a better system.

Elizabeth Farmer said she was frustrated and felt the public was finding out about how far along the Bloomingdale decision is a “day late and a dollar short.”

She said she’s tried to join the committees, but never made the cut.

“I think I know why,” she said.

She said that there’s a general feeling that people who wanted to save Bloomingdale Elementary were left out purposefully. She also said many people didn’t know their voices were needed until it was too late.

School board Chair and subcommittee Chair Mark Farmer said only 12 people applied. The board had put information about joining the committee “everywhere.”

He was frustrated. He feels the board is being “crucified” over a decision that they’re agonizing over having to make. Mark said they’re being told that people think they don’t care, but he said that they care deeply.

He said the decision is about trying to not end up in a fiscal crisis. He said it was not a foregone conclusion when they started, but the committee has not been able to find any other feasible options.

“We have been desperately hoping that there’s something else that would come,” Mark said.

One thing he sees people say that frustrates him is that the district spent millions on the new High School turf field, but is now considering closing a school, in part, because of finances. He said the money for the field came from a specific fund and could not have been used to pay teachers or otherwise fund Bloomingdale Elementary. State laws tell them how to spend money, he said.

–

Research and reading

–

The subcommittee has released an “educational impact statement,” including a full history, findings and opinions of the committee on what to do.

The statement said they recognize that small elementary schools are “community anchors and gathering places,” and that the closure would have impacts on students, families and the community — specifically, it notes “potential impacts on community vitality and perceptions of the hamlet’s future.”

The district administrators also released a letter addressing the resolutions.

Both can be read in full at slcs.org, on the home page, below the public hearing announcement — or at tinyurl.com/5d2st8sb and tinyurl.com/fe3fyb36.

The resolutions which will be discussed on Wednesday can be read at tinyurl.com/yc38vh9e.

The district has indicated that if it closes Bloomingdale Elementary, it would not sell the building, but would keep it for yet-to-be-determined purposes.

–

Problems with the process

–

Members of the subcommittee met two weeks ago to give their thoughts on how the district should reconfigure for the future. Most of their opinions were verbal and written about in a previous Enterprise article at tinyurl.com/ynmnpkfr.

Committee member Scott McKim didn’t verbally give his thoughts at the meeting last week, but submitted a written statement. He criticized the process that brought the committee to this point, saying goals and timelines shifted, that he did not feel it was comprehensive and essentially washing his hands of the board’s decision, if they choose to close Bloomingdale.

“When anyone in the community asks me why Bloomingdale School is closing, I want to be able to answer honestly that we put in a good faith effort to review reasonable options to avoid closure, but I cannot,” McKim wrote.

McKim said he felt their process was important — to legitimize the outcome, document their work, address skepticism and provide clarity for future boards.

“I do not believe our process to date has met that standard,” he wrote.

He said there’s a public perception that this decision to close the school was made long ago and this current process is performative.

He illustrated how that perception is created with a timeline he says shows “shifting goals” and an acceleration of the timeline.

The facilities report the board commissioned, which was completed in 2024, explicitly advised the district to take no action before the 2027-28 school year, saying that would be the year that Petrova’s enrollment is projected to be small enough to accommodate the additional students.

McKim said after Fox chose to move grades three, four and five from Bloomingdale to Petrova for this school year, staff, students and families now say the school “feels gutted and is destined to be closed.”

“At this point forward, there is no going back and the dominoes were firmly put in motion to close Bloomingdale School,” McKim wrote.

He said the school board did not give the committee a clear framework, structure or defined set of options to work on.

“The process included very little original and collective brainstorming about the actual alternatives to outright closure of Bloomingdale School,” McKim wrote.

He had suggested a rubric for the committee, but he said it was never used.

The initial schedule put the decision about reconfiguring the school buildings in June 2026. McKim said the committee was operating on that assumption.

The abbreviated schedule was announced in November.

He said opinions were voiced that not enough warning was given for the public hearings.

Fox said they have to tell the state of reconfiguration plans by March 1. They did not know about this deadline until recently, and it is sooner than expected.

McKim said he’s unsure how the March 1 deadline was realized and why it was not known prior.

“When viewed collectively, these shifts contribute to the community’s concern that the goalposts and timeliness have been moving in ways that undermine confidence in the process, and that the Superintendent and/or BoE had already made the decision to close the school,” McKim wrote.

He said he’s personally open to the possibility that closing the school is the best decision for the community. But he added that he’s not comfortable arriving at that decision through a process that “at times feels predetermined, compressed and inconsistently framed.”

He refrained from providing a recommendation over what to do with the school.

–

Administrator letter

–

A letter from the district administrators about the plans to close Bloomingdale Elementary and move the Middle School grades to the high school building said the decision hinges on being “honest about our realities.”

It says, with the “growing complexity in the academic, social-emotional and programmatic supports students require,” as well as the declining district enrollment, Bloomingdale Elementary is inefficient and splitting services between two elementary school buildings.

“We recognize what is being lost,” the letter says. “Bloomingdale Elementary is more than a building; it is a community with a proud identity and generations of shared memories. Our middle school model, too, holds a special place in the hearts of students, families and staff.

“We also believe that making this decision early is an act of responsibility and compassion,” the letter adds.

It says that closing the school now will protect the budget from “prolonged inefficiencies,” and give a definitive answer to all the people wondering what will happen.

“Just as importantly, it provides students and staff with clarity and closure,” the letter states. “Knowing the direction of the district allows families to begin processing change, and it alleviates a great deal of stress for staff who want to understand where they will land, who they will work with and how they can begin preparing for the year ahead.”

The letters says that reconfiguration creates opportunities to “offer more consistent access to specialized services, expand programming and reduce gaps that currently exist across buildings.”

“Having 7-12 certification levels housed together also provides important flexibility in staffing and scheduling, allowing us to respond more effectively to student needs,” the letter states.

–

Looking back

–

Back in the 1970s, the Saranac Lake district had twice as many students and enrollment broke 2,000. A majority of this enrollment drop has happened in the past quarter-century. At the turn of the millennium, the district had 1,743 students. In the 2014-15 school year, the district had 1,266 students. The district reported 984 students enrolled on opening day this year — 60 fewer than reported on opening day last year.

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