Merger Is Overdue

Tuckahoe School serves students up to eighth grade, and the Tuckahoe School District’s ninth-through-12th-graders currently are tuitioned out to Southampton High School, at great expense to Tuckahoe taxpayers. This arrangement benefits Southampton School District as well by providing a steady income stream that allows Southampton High School to offer a broader array of classes, as well as additional sports programs and other extracurricular activities.

Because Southampton School District is larger and the land values are much higher than they are in Tuckahoe School District, Southampton taxpayers are getting a great deal on their property taxes, as they are being subsidized by less-wealthy Tuckahoe residents. Meanwhile, Tuckahoe residents don’t get a say in their local students’ high school education, as those decisions are reserved for the Southampton Board of Education, and Southampton voters.

In light of the unbalanced and inherent unfairness of the arrangement — as well as the redundancy of having two school district administrations for a relatively small pool of students — referendums on a merger of Southampton and Tuckahoe were held in 2013 and 2014.

As could be expected, the measure passed in Tuckahoe overwhelmingly, to the tune of 533-24 in 2014 and by a similar margin a year earlier. Naturally, Tuckahoe residents supported a merger that would lower their taxes and make household contributions to local students’ education more equitable.

But, just as expected, a majority of Southampton voters did not support the idea, voting 1,066-972 against it in 2014, which was only slightly more favorable toward a merger than the vote had turned out in 2013.

Because not enough Southampton voters were on board for two years in a row, the merger never proceeded. This saved Southampton School District taxpayers money in the short run — but it may cost them dearly in the long run, either in terms of skyrocketing property taxes or devastating program cuts.

Tuckahoe used to offer parents the option of sending their high schoolers to either Southampton High School or Westhampton Beach High School. But since the 2013-14 school year, Southampton and Tuckahoe have had an exclusivity agreement. This gave Tuckahoe a break on price per student, in exchange for Southampton getting more dollars overall and more predictability when it comes to how many tuitioned students it will educate in the coming years. The current five-year contract enters its fifth year this fall, so renewal discussions are only months away.

Tuckahoe could decide to go back to giving parents a choice of district, or decide to create an exclusive arrangement with Westhampton Beach or another district, just as it has had with Southampton for more than a decade. These options give Tuckahoe leverage.

During this upcoming round, there is an added aspect to the negotiations: Tuckahoe is exploring the feasibility of constructing its own high school, in conjunction with the Shinnecock Nation, which would negate the need for Tuckahoe to tuition its older students to other districts.

The long-term impact of such a move — which would be years away from coming to fruition even if it were to be green-lighted today — would be significant for Tuckahoe and Southampton alike. It would mean Tuckahoe residents would stop attending Southampton High School. But the move also would shift millions of dollars annually in state Native American tuition payments for Shinnecock students from Southampton to Tuckahoe.

A pending bill in Albany right now would allow Tuckahoe Common School District to vote to reorganize into a union free school district, which is the first step toward creating a high school. What was once an abstract idea is suddenly becoming more real.

But, frankly, the South Fork doesn’t need any more schools. Enrollment projections show a downward trend in the number of students who will fill school hallways here. Merging districts to save on administrative costs while offering a solid education and broad programming is the way to go, even though it is hard to get the voters on board when one district in the merger appears to be winning and the other losing, at least financially.

The prospect of a Tuckahoe High School should be the wakeup call to Southampton voters that a merger is long overdue and, ultimately, the best for everyone. Southampton residents would not see their children suffer program cuts, and Tuckahoe residents would have a say in their students’ high school education. And the third leg of the merger must be better representation for Shinnecock parents and students, and better student outcomes.

At the moment, Shinnecock leaders seem unwilling to reconsider a merger: They say a Tuckahoe-Shinnecock partnership in a newly reorganized district is the preferred solution, and that idea now has a clear path forward. The onus is on Southampton now to make a convincing case that it’s a merger that will benefit students, particularly from Shinnecock Territory, as well as taxpayers.