What's in it for Warwick?

To the editor: There have been two very different opinions on the possibility of Warwick accepting the Greenwood Lake high school students. Two weeks ago, Mr. Wirth, the president of the Tuxedo Teacher’s Association, wrote a letter on the view from their standpoint. This past week, Mr. Finn, who we believe is a member of the Greenwood Lake Board of Education, gave the other standpoint. We, however, have a question that no one seems to be asking but should be: what is in this for Warwick? The only positive that we can see is revenue that has been estimated at $600,000, or about 1 percent of the school budget. The 270 added students would then represent 18 percent of the high school population. This hardly seems worthwhile. Also, the high school only holds 1,650 students and already has 1,450 in the building. When the Greenwood Lake students are added, this number jumps to 1,720. The Board and the superintendent have expressed concern over population decline, but as we travel around town we still continue to see growth. How much decline will there have to be in order to not go over the maximum of the high school building? Mr. Wirth, in his letter gives the positives of small schools, stating the recommended ideal high school is 600. Warwick will never be a high school of 600 students but it does not have to be so close to capacity at almost 1,650 that we risk having to fund an addition or a new high school on the backs of the taxpayers. Mr. Finn points to Tuxedo’s public relation firm and its attempts to circumvent some of the issues. Yet at the joint board meeting, Warwick and Greenwood Lake agreed to look into a public relation firm also. How will that firm get around the issues that the financial gain in this endeavor is minimal and that the high school is already overcrowded? Mr. Finn also states that Greenwood Lake students will no longer be sitting on window sills in an overcrowded school like Tuxedo was before the addition, so we guess it’s the Warwick students who will have to sit there in the Warwick high school when it gets to crowded. Also recently discussed is the fact that the New York State Department of Education has gone on the record as saying that it would no longer stand in the way of Greenwood Lake building its own high school. This endeavor has been the ultimate goal in Greenwood Lake for a long time, but it is a four to six-year project. So if Warwick accepts Greenwood Lake and fully phase them in five years, will we then have to phase them out? Will this be before or after we over crowd the high school? The added staff and programs will then have to be cut, and for what a stopover and the only positive of the entire “experiment“ the revenue, will have been for nothing. This is a squabble between Tuxedo and Greenwood Lake that Warwick has no business being in the middle of because there is no benefit to the school or our children. While we understand and sympathize with Greenwood Lake’s tuition costs and the devastation that Greenwood Lake’s leaving Tuxedo would do to their teachers and other staff, this is not Warwick’s fight. We, as a district need to get out of the way, and let these two town’s work out their differences. The answer to the only question that matters is nothing is in this for Warwick. Deborah Giuliani on behalf of Warwick Residents for Fair Education