KLSD voters approve Early Childhood Center

By JEFF MORRIS

A revamped and slimmed-down proposal for an Early Childhood Center at the former Lewisboro Elementary School has been approved by Katonah-Lewisboro School District voters.

Unofficial results on Tuesday night showed the bond proposition passing, 1,586 to 1,275, a margin of 311 votes.

That is a sizable increase in approval from the first attempt in May at what was then called the KLSD Pre-K and Community Center, when there were 1,411 votes in favor. At that time there were 1,433 votes against, causing the proposition to fail by 22 votes.

The result shows the district was able to mount a successful campaign to inform residents of what is included in the plan, why it is needed, and why it makes sense to refurbish and repurpose an 86-year-old school building as the most sensible solution to accomplish that end. Residents had expressed doubts about whether the district had effectively communicated those points prior to the first referendum.

Surprisingly, the turnout for this single-issue October referendum exceeded the number of votes cast on the proposition in May, when it was on the ballot along with the school budget and Board of Education candidates. At that time, there were 2,844 total votes cast on the proposition; this time, the preliminary total is 2,861. And while the number of votes in favor increased by 175, the number of votes opposed dropped by 158. Those totals will probably change slightly once absentee ballots are included.

The proposition that was approved calls for issuing $19.95 million in bonds to finance the KLSD Early Childhood Center, which will accommodate the state’s free universal pre-kindergarten mandate for 2028. The original proposal was for $24.5 million, and would have included a community center. 

Surveys and focus groups conducted in the months that followed the defeat concluded most opposition was to the community center component, while there was strong support for universal pre-K.

The revised proposal would demolish 40% of the existing LES building, a sizable portion of which is the original 1940 structure, though it had been renovated since then. But it will utilize the primary wing that was added to accommodate kindergarten, first and second grades in 1951. Those rooms included individual bathrooms — one of the key state requirements, along with larger room sizes, allowing them to be used for pre-kindergarten.

The plan also retains the 2003-vintage gym for community use, though it will not receive the HVAC upgrades originally earmarked for it, nor will it have a direct structural connection to the rest of the building as first proposed. It will get a new roof, and the district will maintain its partnership with the town of Lewisboro, allowing its Parks & Recreation department to rent the gym as it had in past years.

A notable aspect of Tuesday’s referendum was its use of old-fashioned paper ballots. While voters signed in on electronic tablets linked to the district’s registration database, they were then handed small slips which they traded for 8 1/2 x 11-inch sheets, with the bond proposition printed in English on one side and Spanish on the other. They were instructed to mark the Yes or No box with either an X or a check mark, and the ballot was then deposited in an actual ballot box — to eventually be counted by hand. Despite this seemingly time-consuming process, results were made available two hours after the polls’ 9 p.m. close.

The district said it will now move forward with planning and design, with a target opening of fall 2028, and that it will share updates along the way.