Bloomingdale Elementary School (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — With the Saranac Lake Central School District Board of Education scheduled to take a vote on whether or not to close Bloomingdale Elementary School on Feb. 25, the division among the school community on whether that’s a good idea or not is more apparent than ever.

At a board meeting on Wednesday, SLCSD Superintendent Diane Fox made a recommendation to close the school and gave her reasoning behind that decision. Enrollment is at record lows for the modern era, the cost of running a school building is higher than ever and she said it doesn’t make sense to keep Bloomingdale open if it cannot provide equal access to resources for its students as Petrova can.

During public comment, nine people spoke in opposition to that decision. They all asked the board to “slow down” and not make a decision yet. They want the board to take more time to focus on finding creative solutions to avoid making a decision everyone involved said they do not want to have to make.

A majority of board members and building facilities 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. But there is dissent on the committee.

On Feb. 25, the board will vote on 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 did not discuss the resolutions much at the Wednesday meeting, but they’ve talked about them at length previously.

The building facilities subcommittee, which has been studying the reconfiguration that the resolutions are proposing, released its official thoughts on the best path forward — including a full history, findings and opinions of the committee on what to do. The report it generated shows division among the members. The district administrators also released a letter addressing the resolutions. To read more about this report, the administrator’s letter and a history of the discussion, go to tinyurl.com/3n5kr8df.

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

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

The two community members — St. Armand town Supervisor Davina Thurston and Bloomingdale resident Scott McKim — 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.

Thurston 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. McKim is not sharing his recommendation on the closure because he feels the process has been flawed from the start.

Elizabeth Farmer, who attended the previous board meeting, said, based on what she saw, she believes that the board member’s minds were not made up, which gave her hope. She asked them to “hit the pause button.”

“Prove everybody wrong,” Bloomingdale resident Adam Reynolds said. “Prove that the decision wasn’t made and you are going to give it a chance.”

“What’s it going to hurt?” Bloomingdale resident Leanne Favreau said.

On Friday, Fox said she doesn’t believe the district can wait to act. The enrollment crisis has been discussed since at least 2014, she said, and she doesn’t believe waiting will change anything.

She said the universal Pre-K program cannot stay at Bloomingdale, because it is adding to transportation issues and costs.

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Fox’s restructuring proposal

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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.

“Unfortunately, we are a district losing population,” Fox said.

The district had its highest population in 1995, with twice as many students as there are today — more than 2,000. Enrollment has been on a steady decline ever since, she said. A majority of this 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.

“Our decrease in student enrollment is actually happening at a faster rate than we anticipated that it would,” Fox said.

She’s heard people say it’s because of homeschooling, but said that’s not really the case. Saranac Lake did have a higher rate of homeschooling than was normal when she got here, Fox said. In Saranac Lake, it was part of the cultural — before kids were taught at home instead of public schools in protest, opting out of state testing. But she said the percentage of homeschoolers compared to the total number of kids in the district — 3.96% — is around average today.

In the district, 98 students attend private schools. Fox said this is not an unusual number for a district this size.

The problem, she said, is that local houses are not filled with children anymore.

She said retirees are some of the only people who can afford to buy homes here. The average single-family home goes for more than $300,000 in Harrietstown. Those who can afford property, often don’t live here. Fox said only 67% of houses in the district are occupied full-time. The other 33% are short-term vacation rentals, second homes or vacation homes passed down through families.

Though the district is rich in land — which lowers the amount of state aid its schools get — its population is not wealthy. The per capita income in the district is $36,000, Fox said, with a mean household income just under $70,000.

The federal government ended a four-day government shutdown on Tuesday with a bill funding the government through September. The school district sets its budget in the spring, so Fox said they’re going to be planning without knowing what changed in their funding might come when school actually starts in the fall. They do know there is an anticipated $2 million increase in insurance costs and union contract updates will likely mean staff pay will be going up, too.

Fox said the district could save an estimated $600,000 annually by closing Bloomingdale. This would not lead to a reduction in taxes, but would stave off larger tax increases or budget cuts.

The district’s budget is $38.1 million. Davina said $600,000 represents 1.57% of the entire budget.

Reynolds said $600,000 is not a lot in the face of a $2 million insurance increase. He said closing the school for financial reasons, “mathematically doesn’t make sense.”

Bloomingdale resident Jonah Tremblay said he has a young family and that the small community school was a big part of their decision to move here. He pointed out that the $600,000 in savings is the high end of the estimate, and that the annual savings could be lower.

Fox said they looked at making Bloomingdale Elementary a hub for younger students. This would mean adding more bus routes and providing special educators, psychologists, occupational therapists and physical therapists.

“It is not equitable to our kids to have a small group in one spot,” Fox said. “Because the minute they need any type of service (like special education), they have to leave their safe spot and go meet a whole new group of people in the middle of the school year.”

Davina did not agree with this.

“It was stated repeatedly that students with special needs could not be accommodated at Bloomingdale School as they could not share a provider for services,” she said.

She said, for decades, service providers were shared between several schools within the district. She said, even if Bloomingdale cannot provide all the services Petrova can, she believes it can provide the most basic services.

Students at Bloomingdale can get speech, occupational and physical therapy. If they need specialized special education services, they go to Petrova, where there are more resources.

Fox said the number of students receiving special education services is steady, but the students getting those services have higher needs than they did a decade ago.

Fox said moving to a single bus run would not result in huge savings, but could allow buses to last longer and stave off expensive purchases. She added that it would cut their liability on the road in half. She said the longest bus routes students take would not get longer with a single bus run.

It’s unclear when the school will be mandated to convert to electric buses, but it is coming, Fox said. Electric buses can cost three times as much as a traditional bus, she said, and electric rates are skyrocketing currently.

She said the district is working to “right-size” its staff. Having fewer students in the district, means they should need fewer teachers.

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.

Fox said the money spent on the high school turf field — which is bought up to compare the millions spent on building it with the money the district doesn’t have to pay for increased costs — was tucked away for a specific purpose. It could only be spent on facilities upgrades, she said. The field is a draw for students, she added. Around 50% of students play a sport — many of which practice and compete on the new complex. She also said sports are a draw for students to attend school, when academics aren’t cutting it for them.

Fox said she feels there’s a misunderstanding about the potential closure being a “done deal” or the outcome being “predetermined” from the start.

She believed from the get-go that closing the school would be the right thing to do for the district. The board wanted to talk about it more, she said, so they set up the committee. She said though the committee’s recommendation to the board is what she had wanted, it’s because she saw what was coming.

Fox held up a box containing all the deeds to old school properties. The district closed and sold its Lake Colby Elementary School in 2011 and its Lake Clear School in 2009. There were several other schools closed before that and numerous one-room schoolhouses. Fox said the community has had this hard discussion many times before. She remembers when she was an administrator for the school in Cadyville which the Saranac Central School District closed, and it was a hard decision then, too.

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Public comment

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St. Armand Councilman J.P. O’Neil said he understands the causes behind this decision, but doesn’t feel the board’s given enough thought to alternatives. He asked if the committee ever thought of keeping K-3 at Bloomingdale and having a trade school in the other half of the building — maybe a partnership with North Country Community College.

School board and committee member Mike Martin said they talked about those things. Farmer said some options are not legal for them to do.

Farmer said the board has “zero intentions” of selling the building if the school closes.

Davina said they shouldn’t close the school until they have a plan for what to do with the building.

Davina shared her frustration that the timeline for this decision was accelerated. The decision was initially supposed to be made in June 2026. She said she was “stunned” when the board called for public hearings in January. The committee had five more meetings scheduled before the public hearings were supposed to start. She said she was very upset that decisions are set to be made before the committee was able to complete its schedule.

Davina said if this is the most important decision the board will make for a decade, as Farmer has said, then the board should not speed up the timeline.

“Slow down and give it until next year so that the buildings and facilities committee can actually do the work that we were tasked to do,” Davina said.

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.

Davina called back to comments board members made in 2024 about Petrova “bursting at the seams” with students, and that Bloomingdale has space.

Board Member Justin Garwood said if they do follow Fox’s recommendation, it would not pack Petrova more, because the middle school grades would move to the high school building.

Davina said Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced a $4.5 billion endeavor to make universal Pre-K mandatory statewide and wondered where the district would put that.

She referenced several housing projects which are nearing completion or starting to take off.

Davina said if they are going to draw new families here, they need space for more kids to attend school here. Great schools entice families to move here, she said, adding that closing Bloomingdale right before new housing brings in new families and new tax revenue would be a “travesty.”

On Friday, Fox said there are housing projects on the way, but she does not believe they’ll be large enough or fast enough to change district enrollment enough to make Bloomingdale viable.

Davina recalled when Vermiculite was discovered at Petrova, several classes there moved to Bloomingdale while the potentially-asbestos-containing material was removed. She wondered what the plan is if there is an unexpected emergency like that again.

Saranac Laker Anne Cantwell-Telfer created an online petition asking the board to slow down or put the closure discussion up for a public vote. She said she created the petition at c.org/tYVT4FqdjY because parents are busy and it takes a lot of time to draft a letter or attend a board meeting — time parents don’t have. As of press time on Friday, the petition had 364 digital signatures. Cantwell-Telfer said that this is significant, given that 519 people voted in the last school board election.

“Your constituents are speaking and we’re asking you to listen,” she said.

Board Member Tori Thurston said out of 12,897 potential voters in district, only 400 to 500 vote in an average year. The largest turnout in recent memory — when the turf field was on the ballot in 2024 — only brought out around 1,450 voters. She urged everyone to get people they know involved in school votes.

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.

“There is no imminent threat,” Cantwell-Telfer said, adding that the March 1 deadline is “self-imposed.”

She said the district has a “spending problem.” In 2024 to 2025, she said district administrators got raises between 7.3% and 17.2%, much higher than in neighboring Lake Placid.

She said she’s lost faith in the superintendent and the board.

On Friday, Fox said SLCSD administrators actually got a contractual 3% raise in 2024-25, and that public salary databases are not always accurate in their figures about raises.

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.

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

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

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.