Jan 16, 2013 9:41 AM
- RELATED ARTICLES
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- > Tuckahoe School Officials Ask Lawmakers For Help, Painting A Dark Financial Future Dec 5, 2012 11:23 AM
- > Tuckahoe School Community Split On Exclusivity Deal Nov 28, 2012 10:29 AM
- > Southampton And Tuckahoe School Districts Begin Merger Feasibility Study Process Oct 24, 2012 10:05 AM
- > Tuckahoe And Southampton School Districts Seek Merger Study Oct 17, 2012 12:17 PM
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Just beginning the merger feasibility study process, board members and administrators from the Southampton and Tuckahoe school districts have a lot of questions.
At the first of several public meetings concerning the study, which took place at the Rogers Memorial Library last Wednesday, January 9, officials from both districts identified key concerns they have—primarily how a merger would affect taxes, students, staff and the districts’ facilities and programming.
The SES Study Team, the consulting firm conducting the study, opened the floor up to board members and both superintendents to voice concerns and to specify what they think the feasibility study should address. The results of the study are not expected to be completed or published until early August, according to Doug Exley, a member of the study team. The boards could put... more
At the first of several public meetings concerning the study, which took place at the Rogers Memorial Library last Wednesday, January 9, officials from both districts identified key concerns they have—primarily how a merger would affect taxes, students, staff and the districts’ facilities and programming.
The SES Study Team, the consulting firm conducting the study, opened the floor up to board members and both superintendents to voice concerns and to specify what they think the feasibility study should address. The results of the study are not expected to be completed or published until early August, according to Doug Exley, a member of the study team. The boards could put... more
Your reference that they don't contact those who disagree with them is why this school district is practically bankrupt and is the idiotic school district that it has become. The ...more school Board has a sacred obligation to get input from the entire community which in history they have most often ignored.
Your attitude smacks of being one of the Board members who destroyed this once great school or else you are one of the handful of contractors or school personnel that have financially benefitted from this hideous Board administration.
What violent rhetoric of Progressnow? She is simply a community member demanding accountability . You have been all over the internet trying to protect the interests of this Board and likely your own financial interests.The spectacularly tragic mess your ilk and the Board have made of this school and its real estate values is embarrassing.
You guys can't do anything right and instead of embracing the community's input, you ludicrously run to politicians like Thiel and LaValle begging in the most humiliating fashion for financial help. Don't you guys have any pride to stand on your own instead of crying for help from people who can't help you?
The school is bankrupt because it is run by idiots, supported by iidiots, which cannot be denied since this school is very well funded - $18,000,000.00 for what? Just total mediocrity and you want to merge with another mediocre school. I guess birds of a feather flock together.
Just 2 years ago the school board went to the public asking to spend a million dollars to build on campus housing and now they are on the brink of destruction? What the hell happened?
The point of merging one now mediocre school with another is spot on! And for what? To save $600,000 of an ...more $18 million dollar budget? This board has shut out the community and continues to do so.
Has anyone with a child currently in the 8th grade received a phone call or a letter explaining the exclusivity granted to SHHS?
From 2001 to 2010, expenditures went up near double digits every year, all on top of a gigantic 21% increase about 2002, all charged to outraged taxpayers. If you pay attention ...more to the annual budgets, most of the increases have been due to staff and teacher salary, benefits and pension increases. That's fine while the school can afford it but those increases now will produce million dollar deficits for the next years.
It's time for them to step up and help out since the district can no longer afford it. Why have they not been vocal about possible concessions that can help out. All over the country, cops and municipal unions have been giving significant givebacks and freezes in these hard times. Many teachers' and staff unions all over the country have contributed greatly.
This is a numbers game in the budget and unaffordable huge annual escalations based on lucrative contracts need to adjust to reality. Otherwise, worse staff and teacher layoffs will be the inevitable result in a consolidation.
2) The horrific 2002 21% increase is totally separate from that other abomination, the shameless Black shirt union action that the union took out on the kids everyday, the collective bargaining negotiations with the Board. That black shirt disgrace occurred after 2005, a more recent event.
But the Board giveaways then unequivocally lay the groundwork for this insolvency prospect for Tuckahoe that will need another school district to fix.
THIS INCOMPETENT SCHOOL BOARD SHOULD HAVE THE DECENCY TO RESIGN, ESPECIALLY GRISNIK AND THE VERY CONTROVERSIAL STEUDTE WHO WERE IN THE CENTER OF THIS FISCAL DISASTER.
Teach,I am on record as having called Rozzi a hopelessly inept educator who presided over the steep decline of Tuckahoe. But she was largely following the lead of Grisnik, not vice versa as we all knew. Grisnik was the biggest defender of the Rozzi horrors.
When the sharp and experienced former principal who replaced Rozzi did not see perfectly eye to eye with Grisnik, he was gone in scarcely over six months! That sharp gentleman was the one who figured out quickly what it was costing ...more Southampton HS to provide Special Ed and charging us nearly double the price just because they could. Great detective work.
If you are saying that because the Board Chair is an ER doctor and not a financial expert, then he is totally absolved of all the financial embarrassment that they have brought to Tuckahoe, I respectfully disagree. I don't think you can blame the Jamaican Business Officer who had the misfortune to report to such a dysfunctional, incompetent Board.
The business officer you refer to was a complete idiot, hired by an inept board who then gave him a huge raise for his ineptness. It was your time on the board that led to Tuckahoe's demise. I remember it well, as do so many others. You cannot escape your past. I feel sorry for everyone still living in that district, all of ...more whom are victims of idiot school board members who cannot see past their personal agendas.
You and observant or both off base. The buck stops with whoever is in charge, but that does not mean that the school wasn't destroyed long before their time!
2 years ago 2 members of this current board came to the Tuckahoe tax payers and asked to spend a million dollars of SURPLUS on on-campus housing! (the third member now believes ...more that he is the 'sheriff" and has complete autonomy over the entire district!) They had a chance to listen the community and drop their referendum but they refused and the kids paid for their intransigence. That action forced many of us to leave the district rather than face continued bs.
If you live in Southampton, your taxes are going up. If you live in Tuckahoe, you've lost what was once a great little school and your taxes will go down, but so will your property values. May advice, get out while you can!
If you read his posts, however, he does clearly insinuate that he is part of the "We" he refers to when discussing the board and the community.
I have identified myself on these boards numerous times and my screen name is simply a shortening of my full name, David D'Agostino. Unlike the others who rant and rave about Tuckahoe, ...more I have no fear of reprisal or lack of conviction in stating my opinions. It is too bad that others do not feel they can do the same but rather feel it necessary to attack, insinuate and further inflame the issue while hiding behind cutesy avatars and hurling insults.
The issues facing Tuckahoe, and American education in general will not be solved anonymously.
To Teachourkids: I attended no less than four meetings regarding the issue of exclusivity and merger and the my conclusion, right or wrong, was based on those meetings.
Speaking of bills, how will the merger effect the taxpayers of the Southampton School District? Will my taxes go up because of fiscal irresponsibility in Tuckahoe? Will the Southampton school boards have any say in what happens to Tuckahoe staff members? While we're all in the same community here, the well is about dry, we are TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY!
The district of Southampton has low taxes because of the houses in the estate section not from Tuckahoe. The thought that Tuckahoe keeps Southampton taxes low ...more shows your ignorance.
You cheer for the demise of Tuckahoe in order to make some ludicrous political statement about immigrants while neglecting to realize that we have been propping you up for years and years and that includes those of us who did not even send ...more our children to your district. Take away Tuckahoe's welfare payments to your district and, yes, your taxes will go up. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact.
Southampton does indeed have to rationalize the massive expenditure of expansion by adding more students, and, in turn, your tax dollars will increase. No need to thank us for all of the tax dollars we've saved you over the years.
He is the person most responsible for the decline and the power behind that Board who installed that deer staring into the headlights Dan Crough who knows academic governance and financial budgeting about as much as a raccoon does about playing the ...more violin. Add the infamous Steudte whose election was involved into the first investigation and referral to the Police and NY State Dept. of Education for apparent voter fraud.
You put these three guys in a school board with their wacky academic ideas you set in motion a highly combustible mix of incompetence,community arrogance and worse than I can print here. We have today what is a totally predictable outcome when a Piltdown man is allowed to tax, tax, and spend the community's money for pure personal aggrandizement without accountability.