Southampton, Tuckahoe Discuss Future of Districts, Potential Merger Study

Members of the Southampton School Board and Tuckahoe Board of Trustees walked away with more questions than answers after their first public meeting to discuss the future of the districts on Monday morning, opening a dialogue about a potential merger study.

“Neither side is saying we are merging — that’s not what either side is saying,” explained Southampton School Board member SunHe Sherwood-Dudley. “This is just a conversation to have, to gather facts and information from the community, from both boards.”

The special work session came in the wake of a bill co-sponsored by State Senator Anthony Palumbo and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. that would allow the Tuckahoe Common School District to hold a referendum to reorganize as a union free school district, paving the way for the creation of a new high school in partnership with the Shinnecock Nation.

The swift movement of the bill through the State Assembly and State Senate reopened talks of a merger between the Tuckahoe and Southampton school districts — a proposition that the latter district’s voters overwhelmingly rejected in a pair of referendums, while the former enthusiastically supported the idea, over a decade ago.

“I think today is a very different day than 11 years ago,” Tuckahoe School Board member Sean Hattrick said. “As many difficulties as there are, or obstacles, I think there’s such a greater opportunity to create something in this community — for Southampton, for Shinnecock, for Tuckahoe — that is so much more amazing than we have now.”

During the nearly two-hour-long meeting, a smattering of Southampton and Tuckahoe parents, as well as educators, took to the podium to express their enthusiasm and concerns — pointing to declining enrollment in both districts as a reason to merge, and not further separate, though others encouraged caution when considering the social-emotional welfare of the students.

Community members also asked what they can expect a merger to look like and what the timeline would be — to which the board members and trustees explained that they simply don’t know yet.

Hattrick, who was involved with a committee for the first merger study in 2013, said there are new hurdles to overcome, including finding a firm to conduct a current merger study. They are few and far between, he explained.

“Speculating, I would say from today, what is the earliest possibility of this thing?” he posed. “If the wheels were greased and we all decided this is an amazing idea, I would think it’s probably two to three years.”

According to Southampton School Board Vice President Cara Conklin-Wingfield — who led the meeting in the absence of President Jacquline Robinson — the New York State Education Department will soon direct school districts to have consolidation conversations, though the guidance may apply more to rural regions, she said.

“I found it interesting that the mandate was out there, and that the financial support for schools that do consolidate has been doubled in some cases,” she said, “and that was valuable information to know.”

While fiscally beneficial in some ways, a merger would likely come with staffing changes. “I can’t tell you that there is no truth to that possibility,” Hattrick said, noting that it would be a painful, difficult process riddled with anxiety among teachers and staff.

“I love Tuckahoe the way it is — it’s a wonderful school. My kids love it. There’s a part of me that wants to keep that the way it is,” he said. “I also have to acknowledge, though, we all do, that what we have had for the last five years, 10 years — you name the time period — the next 10 years will not be as easy. The status quo is not an option anymore and things will be different.”

Fatima Morrell, the new superintendent of schools at Southampton, urged the boards “to make haste slowly, if we want to do this in the right way,” and Tuckahoe parent Christine Hanhausen reminded the members who is at the heart of this decision: the students.

“It seems to me today like a lot of this conversation is focused really on the financial picture of the community, which I think is a great conversation,” she said, “but I would encourage all of us here today to think about the children as we explore a merger potentially, or not.”

But long before a potential merger, Southampton parent Nicole Fischette, who is also a teacher at Tuckahoe, encouraged the board members to find ways for students from both districts to socialize, outside of organized sports, before ultimately meeting in high school.

“This is all very fast right now, and it’s like we’re going to jump into marriage,” Southampton Board of Education member Germain Smith responded. “But you’re right, I think we need to — and you just opened my eyes to something — we need to work on community programs between the school districts, to start dating first.”

Smith, who serves as the Shinnecock Council of Trustees secretary, emphasized that the nation also needed to be included in the conversation and future decision making, whether that is to merge or create a new high school — the latter in response to, primarily, a trend of poor test scores from Shinnecock students.

“I have fought for Southampton since day one and I continue to fight for Southampton to invest in all of our children, but there was always a resistance to what we needed, the services we needed for the kids,” he said, adding, “It was always a struggle to get and all you had to do was look at the numbers of the kids that were graduating in Southampton without the reading skills, the writing skills, the math skills from Shinnecock.”

The relationship between the Shinnecock Nation and Southampton School District was not the only raised point of contention. Tuckahoe Chairman Timothy Gilmartin said that, after the failure of the merger, requests to re-explore it with Southampton “fell on deaf ears.”

Hattrick echoed that sentiment.

“I never had an ax to grind, and somehow I couldn’t get this conversation to happen to save my life,” he said, “and I spent hours in conversation with people that I knew on this board that never allowed it to come to be. I don’t know why that was and I’m glad we’re here, but I want to acknowledge that, because there has been a frustration.”

The trustee apologized for any part that Tuckahoe, or himself, played in the standstill — “If you can’t acknowledge that that even existed, you can’t possibly ever change it,” he said — and encouraged both districts to move forward together.

“I also think it’s incumbent on each one of us and the community to keep an open mind, be kind, be humble and see, hey, if we wanted this to happen, what could it look like?” he said. “We’ve all got to decide whether we want it to happen.”

Ahead of moving forward with a merger study, Gilmartin suggested looking into advisory referendums or straw polls to better gauge public interest from both districts. “I think one of the worst things we could do is go through the process, only to have it voted down twice again,” he said.

The boards took no official action, instead choosing to discuss future steps among themselves separately, which may include forming a committee to create a joint survey that will be distributed to voters.

“I don’t know that anybody needs to go back to the community and try and describe what a merger will look like, because we simply do not know,” Hattrick said. “This is a decision that your board and our board has to make, once and for all, or we can punt it for another five years and see where the ball bounces.

“Are we going to look into what this might look like, if we ever wanted to do it, or not?” he continued. “It’s as simple as that.”

To both boards, longtime Southampton High School basketball coach Richard “Juni” Wingfield offered some words of advice.

“Do the right thing,” he said. “And whatever that is, it’s going to come from a lot of incredible, incredible soul searching, and everybody has to leave their egos at the door.”