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Haldane Needs to Get Married
Dear Editor:
When attending Haldane Board of Education meetings as I do semi-regularly, I look around the room and see a wonderful mix of volunteers who give their free time for the good of the community and dedicated professionals who believe in the great importance of public education, as we all should. I also see patience personified, because lately I have been asking repeatedly, like an old LP record with a skip, if the Haldane School District might pursue a merger with other neighboring school districts. To their credit, the Board and Dr. Mark Villanti, our Superintendent, always try to answer thoughtfully, when lesser mortals might tell me to hit the road.
I am no expert in education matters or in public finance, but I do know a rising tax bill when I see one. One answer to the increasing cost of public education is larger, regional school districts, and the obvious candidates to include in such a district are Garrison and Putnam Valley. Efforts have been made in the past to wed Haldane but we never got to the betrothal, let alone the shoes and rice.
This might certainly be a shotgun wedding where the bride and groom are dragged kicking and screaming to the chuppah. That seems to be the case in Maine, where the state government presently is forcing regionalization on a state full of mini-districts. From what I have read, the people up there have the same fears that people here probably have, namely, the loss of control.
But the upside is less cost when overlap is eliminated and maybe some new buildings whose expense is distributed over more people. Also, Dr. Villanti mentioned New York State looks favorably on such weddings in the form of more money coming to the combined super district. Plus, there will be plenty more kids to fill French classes, which lately has been losing out to Spanish, and those sports with barely or not enough participation to field a team will get some new blood. This sounds like a win-win: great for our children and great for our wallets!
So how do we entice Garrison or Putnam Valley, or better yet, both, into wedded bliss with Haldane? That's all part of the negotiation, but taxes over there are not shrinking so there must be a monetary sweet spot just waiting to be discovered. This is worth doing to preserve what we have, because the alternative is a future with gated-community public education, where only the rich need apply. Blue-collar and whitecollar families out; platinumcollar families in. The rest of us will be long gone.
Joseph Barbaro
Cold Spring
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