City Schools

The list of consolidation options  for the Batavia City School District briefly got a bit shorter Wednesday, when officials announced the elimination of Option 3, which would have stuffed too many kids in too few classrooms.

Now the number of proposals is bigger than it's ever been.

After unveiling Options 5a and 5b in a news release Wednesday, officials introduced a tentative "Option 6" (above) at their meeting Wednesday night at Batavia High School. The as-yet unofficial plan would build an addition (highlighted in blue) at John Kennedy Elementary school, allowing that building to accomodate all of the district's elementary students. John Kennedy would then become the only elementary school in the district.

Including sub-options 2a, 5a and 5b, there have now been eight announced ideas on how to realign the district and get rid of the Washington Avenue administration building.

"Financially, we're not the only ones in this situation. It's school districts around the country," said Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Jim Jacobs today. "Looking at many different options and seeing what fits best...is a big decision."

Jacobs presented "Option 6" Wednesday night, and further explained it today.

"If we were to create Option 6: if (John Kennedy) was (to be) a K-4 school, we'd need to add 20 classrooms. If it was a K-5, we'd need to add something like 30 classrooms," he said.

Jacobs' rough rendering (above) shows what the project could look like.

"Amazingly, the site can support it," he said.

The addition would be a capital project, meaning it would need voter approval. Jacobs calls the plan viable, but won't yet say if he personally supports it.

"We would have to sit down with the architect, and go over program and space needs, and administrative needs," he said. "Those details need to be worked out, to actually put a dollar amount on what the addition could cost us.

"This option takes us away from our neighborhood concept, and it puts us in one location," which are both downsides to the plan, Jacobs said.

It's unclear when or if "Option 6" will become an official consolidation option.

Meanwhile, options 5a and 5b, released Wednesday, were constructed entirely from parent suggestions at recent public meetings. Option 5a would move half of Batavia's K-4 into Jackson School, and the other half into John Kennedy School, along with pre-K. Administrators would move into Robert Morris School, and fifth-graders would move into the middle school.

Under Option 5b, administrators would move into Jackson, and K-4 students would go to Robert Morris. All other facets remain the same as 5a.

Both 5a and 5b preserve the idea of neighborhood schools, though each plan eliminates one of the current elementary schools.

The final public meeting on the consolidation process will be held at 6 p.m. next Tuesday night, Oct. 4, inside Jackson Elementary School.

City School Superintendent Margaret Puzio confirms this afternoon that a short lockdown occurred at Batavia High School today, as a female student was subdued by police.

The student, age and grade unknown, became "upset" according to Puzio. She was deemed "a danger to herself."

All other students were confined to their classrooms as the girl was apprehended. Puzio estimates the actual lockdown period was only about five minutes.

The identity of the girl and any disciplinary action she faces from the district will be kept confidential.

To whatever degree a proposal to reduce city elementery schools from three to two is a trial balloon, in a meeting with parents at Robert Morris School on Tuesday night, it went down like a lead Zeppelin.

If Batavia City Schools Superintendent Margeret Puzio (top photo) hoped to woo some of the 70 parents in attendance, she would have been hard-pressed to find one fan of the idea by the end of the meeting.

Even parents who saw the need -- such as Phil Ricci, a budget ambassador for the school district -- said they hated the idea.

A consolidation of school districts -- one proposal shutters the current administration building and converts Robert Morris into new district headquarters -- would save as much as $1 million annually.

In an era of declining state aid combined with a property tax cap, the district board is forced to find ways to reduce spending that is "thinking outside the box," Puzio said.

She said if the 2-percent property tax cap had passed a year earlier, it would have led to a budget shortfall of $426,064. The cap would have limited the recent property tax increase to $280,106, instead of the $706,170 actually raised.

Plus, the district relied on a one-time federal grant of $567,584 to help balance the budget in 2011-12.

But on Monday night, there were times when parents seemed to simply oppose consolidation of the district's elementary schools regardless of budgetary constraints.

"It doesn’t seem we have a chance for honest input," Caroline Richardson said (first insert photo). "It seems like the decision is already made. It seems like there are no other options other than cutting down our programs again."

The consolidation proposals all involve the district selling its current administration building and then locating those offices to one of the elementary schools.

In each case, students are shuffled in a way that all grades would be at one school or another, such as all K-2 students at John Kennedy or all fifth-grade students at Batavia Middle School.

Cost savings would be achieved primarily through the elimination of some school-level administration and possibily some teaching positions.

The plans all end the idea of community schools serving K-5 students in their own neighborhood.

And that seemed to be the biggest sticking point for parents.

Some parents noted that under the proposals, instead of having their three children at one school, such as Robert Morris, they would end up with a kindergartner at one school, a third-grader at another school and their fifth-grader in the middle school.

Bonnie Vickery pointed out that schools rely on a lot of parent involvement both for educational support and fund raising.

If students are at more distant schools, and in some cases students will only be at a particular school for a couple of years, parents will be less likely to get involved, Lisa Macdonough (second inset photo).

"It's going to hurt schools way more than you realize," Vickery said. "I know the board is doing the best that it can and I know you want to do the best for the students, but there is a sense of community that is going to be lost."

While Puzio pointed to educational advantages of putting, say, all the second graders in one school instead of three, many parents weren't buying it.

A couple of parents cited reports they said showed that students who attended community schools achieved higher test scores, and students who made fewer transfers from school to school are more likely to graduate from high school.

"There are other options you need to be looking at that don't effect the children," Richardson said. "This is a community that has a lot of children in it who are disadvantaged to begin with and now we're going to disadvantage them again by taking them out of their neighborhoods."

Another person said many parents bought their homes where they did to be close to a community-based school, which brought a round of applause from other parents.

Puzio explained that part of the school district's goal was to preserve class size, which in Batavia is traditionally 20 students per class.

But when Macdonough said she would accept more students per class if it meant preserving community schools, nearly every parent applauded.

Another parent picked up the theme.

"Studies have shown that with a quality teacher who wants to be there, class size has little effect," Janelle Marble said. "We need to cultivate good teachers who want to be in their classrooms, who love teaching."

Near the end of the meeting, Ricci spoke up and said when he heard the consolidation plan, he became frustrated. He likes having his children attend Robert Morris, but he also knows the school district is facing a difficult budget situation and the board is doing the best it can on behalf of the children.

"I know all of these guys and know they are not trying to screw over the kids," Ricci said. "If this doesn't work, and it might not work, we as a community need to come together and come up with other options."

A group of parents are organizing a communitywide meeting to discuss consolidation at 7 p.m., Sept. 26, at Richmond Memorial Library. (Location TBD)

No more muddy football games, practice sessions that can begin a month earlier and end a month later and lower maintenance costs are among the advantages of an artificial turf field. That's what about 30 attendees were told about at a public hearing Tuesday night on a proposed $3.9 million upgrade to Van Detta Stadium and the field.

The upgrade would also bring showers into federal Title IX compliance and disability access to the stands into compliance with the American with Disabilities Act. It would also add 75 adjacent parking spots.

The financial impact of the project, some of which would be covered by state aid, would mean the district would need to collect about $110,000 in annual taxes from district residents over 15 years.

Superintended Margaret Puzio acknowledges that in a slow economic time a proposal like this might be counterintuitive. But the time is right, she said, because the recession means the district is likely to attract lower bids from contractors.

"It's important for the public to understand that this may be the last opportunity to do a project of this scope funded at this level," Puzio said near the end of the public hearing.

Afterwards, Puzio said she thought it was important to at least present the option to the public.

"I told the board, morally this is the right thing to do -- to let the public know this is available and let them decide," Puzio said.

The local share -- the amount local taxpayers will pay for directly -- is $1.6 million. The district already has more than $500,000 in its capital improvement fund, which leaves a little over a million to raise locally.

That would mean a tax increase of $6.41 annually to the tax bill of a property assessed at $75,000.

Revenue to pay the balance of the $3.9 million project cost is expected to come from state aid.

The public vote on the proposal is March 29.

Besides converting the playing surface to artificial turf -- which would greatly multiple the number of events and practices the field could be used for annually -- the proposed project also renovates and expands the press box. It adds coaches offices adjacent to the locker rooms and creates separate shower facilities for boys and girls.

The current showers can't even be used because they don't comply with requirements of Title IX.

There would also be a new concession stand area that would include public restrooms.

A 75-space parking lot would be constructed on a current playing field off Union Street (near the center, top left of the picture above).

You could say it's a tale of two cities -- the city that says there are not enough athletic fields for our youths interested in organized sports, and the city that says there's plenty of fields and what's really needed is to preserve the peace and quite of at least one neighborhood.

It's doubtful either side heard the other at tonight's special school board meeting on the proposed North Street Extension athletic fields, but at least the conversation was civil for the more than two hours as board members sat and listened to residents on both sides make their points and ask their questions.

"(The meeting) was pretty much what we expected," said Superintendent Margaret Puzio after the meeting. "We hoped to give people an opportunity to come out and express their opinion, to get the facts, to see what we were planning to do and what our proposal looked like and to comment on it, and that’s what we got."

Some 80 to 100 people showed up for the meeting in the Batavia High School auditorium and it would be hard to say that one side was better represented than the other.

For the most part, you had residents of the North Street area looking to preserve the neighborhood as they know it and on the other you had youth sport coaches and a few concerned parents who don't live in the neighborhood decrying the lack of adequate sports fields in Batavia.

Though there were surprises, such as the high school coach who lives on North Street and opposes the idea of putting new athletic fields in his back yard, and the North Street resident who supports the concept.

"What we’re talking about here is a quality of life issue," said Mike Freeman. "My house is immediately adjacent to this property. I’m one of only 13 residents who look out their back yard into this property. I would gladly see this fixed up and made into a park and into athletic fields so that the people who currently use it do not have to park along people’s driveways and in front of their houses and on their grass."

More typical of the area residents was Jerry Reinhardt, who said with the limited use of the area for athletics now, he's constantly picking up trash and dealing with too much traffic in the neighborhood. He said he tried to purchase the land for development 15 years ago, but his offer was rejected.

“If the school board has listened to me then, they would have gotten more than $1.2 million in taxes so far,”  Reinhardt said.

For the coaches, more than a dozen spoke about an increase in youth sports activity and the need for better facilities.

“I keep hearing of decline, but this season, we had the most kids register for soccer ever," said Jeremy Havens, president of the Genesee Amateur Soccer Association. "We had 483 to be exact. That’s 38 teams playing at five different place in Batavia."

Havens said the number of youths participating would be even higher, but "parents can only be in one place at one time." Since kids of different age brackets play on different fields, parents have to choose which child gets to play, or not, or maybe neither child can participate since the parent would have to choose.

One centralized large facility would help, he suggested.

For Lacrosse coach Will Mulcahy, the problem is the only place his team has to practice in early March isn't really suitable for athletic activity at that time of year.

"As many of you know, our school was built on a marsh, basically," said Mulcahy. "In early march, even the area that we’ve been allotted --  I won’t even call a field -- is a swamp. The kids are some times two- or three-inches deep in mud. It’s not a practical place to practice. Then we’re driven into the gym where a little warmer-weather sports -- like tennis and baseball -- are practicing, so we compete for space with them.

"Lacrosse really needs to be outdoors. We need a field that is well drained where we can get on it really in the first of March so we can prepare properly to play the teams that have fields that are adequate."

Before the public comment portion of the meeting, Puzio presented several slides that provided details of the district's proposal, or what she said is really only a concept at this stage.

The facility would include a playground, restrooms with lockers and showers, 152 parking spaces, a concession area, walking paths and it would immediately open up adjacent lots for development, she said. Contrary to a persistent rumor, there are no plans for lighted fields, she said.

She also pointed out that over the past several years, participation in school sports has risen from 40 percent of the eligible students (499) to 55 percent (596). Part of that increase is the addition of more sports, such as Lacrosse in 2005, and Title IV requirements that both boys and girls be afforded the opportunity to play the same sports.

Ward 1 Councilman Bill Cox, who has taken up the mantle of champion for the residents who oppose the athetic fields, spoke first.He presented a petition signed by 180 residents in his ward.

"Your study is badly flawed and illogical," Cox said, citing declining enrollment at a time when the district says it needs more athletic facilties.

Council members Rose Mary Christian and Bob Bialkowski also spoke in opposition to the proposal. Bialkowski said the proposal will likely be a further burden on taxpayers when the property is already a financial drain on the city.

“We’re already paying for this now," Bialkowski said. "This property has been off the tax roles for many years and it’s been costing the taxpayers of this community quite a bit of money. Too many properties not paying taxes -- it’s really starting to strangle the community."

The idea that the property should be sold and developed into taxable housing was raised more than once during the evening, which eventually prompted Board Member Patrick Burk to point out that the district has already tried to sell the property to developers twice. Once when voters rejected the proposed sale in a referendum, and once when all the bids came in much to low to accept any of them.

The point was also made that such a construction project would carry with it a greater tax burden for construction of infrastructure, plus -- just how much demand for new housing is there in Batavia?

During the presentation, Puzio noted that if the project is fully funded by grants, the district need not bring the project before voters for approval, but after the meeting Puzio acknowledged that full-grant funding is unlikely.

"Given the unknown nature of the funding, it’s very likely that we would have to fund it with some public funding," Puzio said. "It’s not out of the realm of possibility that we might ask for a vote."