Sullivan West still shrinking

By FRITZ MAYER

LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY — “We’re going to be faced with closing this school or Jeff in 10 years time if this trend keeps up.” Those were the words of Shaun Sensiba, a member of the board of the Sullivan West Central School District, during a presentation by Dr. Kenneth Hilton about the future of the school population in the district. The presentation was held at the high school on November 13.

Hilton said at the outset, “We have facilities for 3,500 students and we have 1,313 students.” Last year, the number of students was 1,385. Hilton projected decreases of about five percent per year for the foreseeable future. He added, however, that while he is fairly sure about the numbers for the next year, further out the numbers are harder to predict.

Over the past five years, Sullivan West has had a decline of 16.3 percent in student enrollment, but the district is not alone in shrinking student populations. All school districts in Sullivan County experienced declines of one degree or another, with the Liberty Central School District losing the most at 16.5 percent and Fallsburg Central School District losing the least at 2.9 percent. Eldred was near the middle with a loss of 6.7 percent.

But the audience this night, of course, was primarily interested in the Sullivan West numbers. Specifically, there was curiosity about the figures regarding the three separate school districts, Delaware Valley, Jeff-Youngsville and Narrowsburg, that were merged to form Sullivan West. It turned out that the percentages of students from the former districts have not changed significantly over the years. In 1998, students from the Delaware Valley area made up 32.2 percent of the Sullivan West total, in 2008 the percentage was 31.5; the percentage from Jeff-Youngsville dropped from 51.6 percent to 49.2 percent over the same 10-year period; the numbers from Narrowsburg rose from 16.3 to 19.3.

The overall population of the district has increased slightly, but people moving to the area are less likely to have children.

As happened last year when a similar forum was held, the discussion about the dwindling student population led to a discussion about the future of the two unused buildings the district owns, which have been empty since 2005. Hilton said the district was not going to need the building for students again, “not in my lifetime.”

The cost of maintaining the Narrowsburg building for the next five years, including capital costs of projects to keep the building operational and to maintain the value, was said to be about $776,000. The same cost for the Delaware Valley campus was estimated at $1,250,000. With costs running that high, some board members present indicated that the board should move forward with getting appraisals about what the buildings might be worth if they were put on the market. However, board member Angela Daley said the board might want to hold off on selling the Delaware Valley campus, because sitting on 48 acres, the property might have a lot of value based on the natural gas that might be beneath it.

Hilton said he would put the issue of appraisals on the agenda for the next board meeting.