Katonah-Lewisboro school board candidates debate pre-K and budget

By JEFF MORRIS 

Proposition 3 to authorize the renovation of Lewisboro Elementary School for universal pre-kindergarten and community use, and fiscal stewardship were among the hot button issues discussed at the May 4 “Meet the Candidates” forum sponsored by the Katonah-Lewisboro Parent Council and The Recorder.

Five candidates for the Katonah-Lewisboro Board of Education participated in the panel discussion, responding  to a series of questions submitted by members of the community, the PTOs, The Recorder and audience members. 

The candidates are competing for three open seats — two full three-year terms and one filling the remainder of an unexpired term. In the randomly drawn order they will appear on the ballot, the candidates are Stacey Isaacson, Lorraine Gallagher, Bill Swertfager, Nancy Bachana and Melissa Dilmaghani. Gallagher and Swertfager currently serve on the board.

After making three-minute opening statements, each candidate was allotted two minutes to respond to each question. Other topics they addressed included hands-on learning and leadership, school safety, and alignment with the district’s Vision 2030 goals. 

Following are excerpts of the candidates’ comments on Proposition 3 and fiscal stewardship. A complete video of the event can be viewed on the KLSD YouTube page, http://bit.ly/42SpeGn.

Question: Explain your position on the $25.4 million bond in Proposition 3 to renovate LES for pre-K and community use.

STACEY ISAACSON

Isaacson: It’s not up to the board to make the decision. They make the recommendations, and then the community makes the decision, and then (the board) will have to run with it. That said, I’m not going to shy away from my own personal opinion. There are many reasons why I will vote “yes.” 

One of the big ones is that it keeps funding in our district. When pre-K becomes universal, we as a district need to find placements for our students. If we can find a way to do that within the confines of our district, we keep that $10,000 per student in our community, we keep those jobs in our community. Otherwise, we will have to find somewhere else for those kids to go. 

They’ll have to travel those distances and then other municipalities will be getting the funding that should be here in KLDS. Also, at the last Board of Ed meeting, the student representative Hudson Lutz spoke to the community so beautifully on this issue and it really stuck with me. 

He said he’s always been taught as a KLSD student, we take care of our fellow community members and we serve all of the children in this district. Not just the ones who can afford certain situations or not afford certain situations — if there’s something we can give to one student, it’s on us to provide that to all students. Currently, we’re only giving it to 44 kids and turning away two-thirds.

LORRAINE GALLAGHER

Gallagher: I am voting “yes” on Proposition 3. For the last three years, I have served as the chairperson of the Lewisboro Committee to determine what to do with this valuable piece of property that this district owns. I spoke at length when we were going through the process. And I believe strongly in reopening it. We explored many, many options of what to do with this school — anywhere from putting up an ice rink for our hockey team to a UPK program, to sports fields — and I strongly believe that we are fortuitously at the right place and the right time with the state mandate that the governor and both houses support. 

It boils down to approximately, on average, $20 per family to open this school district for the community. Do you want to pay $20 or $14,000 for these young families that we need in our town? I think it really provides a place for them to go. It’s also going to allow for community space; without this being open, we can’t afford that. 

We’ve done our homework on this. There’s no room at Katonah Elementary to add classrooms. It’s going to cost about the same amount of money to add the rooms on to the others, Meadow Pond and Increase Miller. So vote “yes,” please.

BILL SWERTFAGER

Swertfager: I’m not going to tell anybody how to vote on this proposition. But I will try to lay out some facts to the community because I think there’s been a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation that is floating out there. 

First, the state is going to mandate free pre-K for all. They’re going to approve $10,000 per student in aid back to the district. LES is going to have 11 classrooms to accommodate the demand. We have 200-plus kindergartners every year, so theoretically we’re going  to have 200 pre-K students. It’s going to take a lot of classrooms to handle that, and our current facilities cannot do that. There’s also going to be 10,000 square feet of community space in this building. They’re going to redo the gym. 

I’ve spoken to realtors about what would happen to property values in our community with the pre-K and the community center going into effect, and they said, at a minimum, property values would go up $10,000, which way more than covers any investment that any individual residential household would have to pay. And regarding state aid, of the $25 million, we get about $6 million back that will go directly to the debt for that $25 million, so it’s really going to be $19 million. Which brings it down to probably $14 per household per month — which, for a centrally located community asset that brings our property values up, I think it’s a small price to pay.

NANCY BACHANA

Bachana: I was also excited about the community space, which is part of the plan. There is a need. So the idea that we have this asset is fortuitous. If we do let it go, we’ll never get it back. And so, for future needs, in my experience, it’s good to hold onto a valuable asset. 

Dilmaghani: If this passes, as a new board member I would be thrilled. But I would also be happy to be brought back to the drawing board to discuss what the next steps could be for LES. I think LES and universal pre-K are two different issues that we’re hoping to bring together. I have heard the community members, and I feel that people have brought up a lot of really good points and concerns. I would like to see the math on some of it. If I went back to the drawing board on this, I would commit to talking to community members more, especially local preschool owners, and really getting the sense of where they land on it. How can we collaborate on UPK? I would be excited to look into other options.

Question: KLSD has seen declining student enrollment for over a decade, with enrollment down 4.8% in the past five years while the budget has increased an average of 2.8% a year during that time. As stewards of district finances, what would you prioritize in order to improve student outcomes while addressing fiscal constraints and ensuring the responsible use of resources? 

MELISSA DILMAGHANI

Dilmaghani: I think I’d love for myself and for the community at large to better understand the budget and to understand how dollars are spent. My perspective is that the board has done a good job of attempting to increase transparency, but I think it would be nice for all community members to feel more access and approachability to the budget and spending. I would really enjoy being a part of leadership that is coming up with ideas that we can implement that don’t cost everyone more money, especially at the middle school and high school level. 

Gallagher: I think first and foremost, our students need to be at the heart of our budget. We need to make sure that every child feels like they matter and that they belong and then they get all the resources that they need. And, I think, as a board, we’ve really made it a priority to keep any budget cuts away from the student’s experience in the classroom. We talk about declining enrollment and the increase in the budget. 

But if you look at inflation, we really have not had a major budget increase in inflation dollars. We’re pretty much still at the same level we were 10, 15 years ago in money spent per kid. It’s the inflationary costs of 12% year over year for our dedicated, beloved teachers who are integral to our students’ learning. The fixed overhead costs, buses, electricity, those sorts of things. 

So I think we’ve done a very good job. We’ve not had any teacher layoffs, we maintained any budget increases within the tax cap and, as a matter of fact, over most of the last 10 years we actually saw budget decreases as a result of closing LES. We’ve done most of the cuts that we can, and we just continue to work with the community, communicating the needs so that they understand why we’re spending the money that we’re spending to keep our students healthy, safe, and educated.

Swertfager: Even though our student population has decreased about 25% over the last 15 years, our fixed expenses have risen, our  maintenance — they continue to go up. When you compare our outcomes and our class sizes to our peer groups, like Chappaqua, Rye, Scarsdale, Bronxville — we actually have lower class sizes than all those schools. We also have a higher percentage of special ed students. We also have more sports teams, participation, clubs and arts programs than many of those other school districts. 

So I think we’ve prioritized our budget to keep it student-centered. We try to stay away from (cuts) that directly relate to the students, but it’s getting tougher and tougher. Our health care expenses have gone up 60% in the last five years. Our state aid has been cut $1.7 million over the last two years. We’re at the lowest state aid rate because of the relative wealth in our community.

Bachana: I think this is one place where I have an advantage, being somewhat new to the area. We came here three years ago. We came here because of the school district. We did a thorough search. We picked Katonah and we have not looked back. The school district is fabulous. We have a big budget. But what we’re getting for that money, the way it has been spent — kudos to the board. I think a lot of people are willing to pay what it takes to get a school this good with the smaller class sizes, and all of the facilities alone blew us away. 

Isaacson: I think there are a couple of things that we’ve been doing recently that we can continue to push further. One of those was the literacy audit that was just done throughout K-5. It’s going to continue through the middle school and high school. 

And it allows us not just to look from a curriculum perspective, but also what methods of instruction are we using? What else is out there? If we haven’t looked for a while, at the technology, at the textbooks, are these the best choices, both from a pedagogical perspective and also from an economic perspective? So it allows us to improve those student outcomes while also looking at the financial picture.