Going Down

There are 14 school districts spread along the 40-mile stretch from Montauk to Westhampton Beach. There may have been a time when enrollment data, and the finances of operating a school district, made that number inconsequential, or at least appropriate. But that time assuredly has passed — and with each budget season it becomes more and more apparent how absurd and irresponsible it is to have this many school districts in such a small geographic area. It’s a waste of money, and it’s a recipe for chaos.

Most East End school districts are forecasting a decline in student enrollment over the next decade, and included among those are districts with already tiny student populations. The decline has been slowly building and was anticipated. It’s not a surprise.

According to an analysis completed by Newsday in January, teacher turnover also is particularly high on the East End, with Amagansett, Bridgehampton, Montauk, Springs and Tuckahoe school districts ranking in the top 10 among 124 public school districts on Long Island when it comes to turnover.

Anecdotally, these facts make sense — the cost of living and lack of affordable housing, in particular, have pushed more families off the South Fork and made it nearly impossible to recruit new professional talent. While teacher salaries are competitive, many educators are forced to commute into the region from points farther west — a grueling, sometimes hours-long process that often negates the reasons someone would want to teach here in the first place.

With a little less than a month before school districts are required to adopt proposed budgets for the 2024-25 school year — budgets that taxpayers will vote for or against on May 21 — a number of local districts are looking at being forced to pierce the state’s cap on year-to-year increases in the taxes a district can levy on its residents. Beyond that, the budget impacts are becoming significant: Many have announced layoffs and retirement incentives in an effort to make their spending plans more digestible and more likely to be approved. It’s also a reasonable response to classrooms that are getting smaller and smaller, according to enrollment numbers.

It is time for educational leaders on the South Fork — and government leaders in Albany — to start crafting a long-term vision for education that supports students first and taxpayers second. This is a conversation that must include the consolidation of school districts on the East End.

Consolidation is tricky, particularly in an area where many wealthy second-home owners declare residency and will fight against any plan that raises their property taxes in the short term, even if there are long-term benefits. For some of the smallest school districts, the idea of losing a community-based school also may be a tough pill to swallow. But the benefits, both fiscal and educational, are beyond obvious. With fewer administrative salaries within a consolidated group of school districts, there is more money for programming, for staff and teachers, and to raise the overall quality of public education.

This also is a conversation about equality. Education on the South Fork is far from an even playing field — some districts struggle to provide even the most basic services, while others with large commercial districts and a steady income of high school tuition can grow new programs and flourish. The inequity is pronounced, and it can’t be shrugged off as “just the way things are.” The educational system, its very structure, has to adapt to changing conditions; the antiquated balkanization of schooling on the South Fork has to go, finally.

Boards of education that are leaving these conversations solely to administrators are being delinquent in their duties to the communities they serve. And administrators not contemplating a more sustainable system for education are doing students, in the long run, a disservice as well.

Dropping enrollment is a symptom of major changes, some benign and some less so, and it represents a moment for urgency among the region’s educators to begin acknowledging the obvious: Consolidation is the only reasonable way forward. We keep our heads in the sand at our own peril, reflected on our tax bills, and, more alarming, in the education being provided to this generation. It’s not good enough.