Greenwood Lake students might attend Chester Academy

Two school boards to meet on Wednesday, By Linda Smith Hancharick Chester —Because of high tuition costs at the school they are now attending, students in Greenwood Lake may soon be attending Chester Academy. For the past 23 years, high school students from Greenwood Lake have attended Tuxedo High School, which received tuition for those extra students. But with tuition increasing to nearly $13,000 per pupil, the costs have become prohibitive for this small district, which has its own elementary and middle school. School officials in Chester and Greenwood Lake have already begun to discuss the change. Mary Luciana, president of the Chester Board of Education president, said both boards met jointly last week just to make sure they were on the same page. “We got a phone call about a month ago saying Greenwood Lake was interested in discussing this with us,” Luciana said. “We got together last week. I felt there was 100 percent interest in looking further.” There was interest in having the two districts merge in the early 1990s, according to Luciana. However, she said, a merger was not possible because state law requires that the two districts have contiguous property. Greenwood Lake and Chester do not. In addition, neither board was interested in taking on the Greenwood Lake students as tuition students. Since that time, Chester built a new school, the Chester Academy, which houses students from grades 6 through 12. The middle school program includes grades 6 through 8, and the high school grades 9 through 12. Currently, Greenwood Lake has about 322 high school students, while Chester has just over 300. The average class size in the Academy is the low 20s, but because of scheduling conflicts, some classes have fewer than that and some have many more. Each board holds its regular monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 14, at their usual locations. Luciana said both boards are interested in getting public input before they go any further. “This is a board decision, but we want to hear from the public,” she said. Greenwood Lake’s contract with Tuxedo ends in June 2007, giving the districts ample time to do their homework. If they decide to go further, Chester will have to look into how much space, and funding, are actually available. If space is a problem, one alternative would be to move the sixth grade back to the elementary school to make more room, Luciana said. Luciana is looking at the possibility of expanding the district as “a positive thing” for students in Chester. “Now we have a problem offering some electives, extra-curricular activities, and advanced placement courses because we don’t have the enrollment to support them,” she said. “If we have more students, we could offer more classes, have more options. But we have to look into the logistics — the space in the building and the cost for teachers. We have to make sure it is viable.”