This letter is written in opposition to the Elementary Education Restructuring Plan.  We do not believe that dismantling our K-5 buildings as Dr. Gundersen has proposed for the 2024-2025 school year is in the best interest of our communities, families, or students. We are frustrated that district decisions are being made without input from stakeholders in the community. 

We acknowledge that our district population is changing and we desire to work together to decide how to best restructure our schools to make us a viable and vibrant district. Many of our concerns about the proposed plan, that have been repeatedly expressed, have largely been unanswered or disregarded by our superintendent. Dr. Gundersen’s appeals for community comment seem performative and disingenuous. He has neither acknowledged or adjusted any of his proposals to address community concerns in his restructuring plan. In fact, each of his presentations have largely been restatements of his original proposal. Where are our voices? 

We do not want these decisions to be made by an outside consulting firm who sees our families and children as data points to be shifted without regard for their needs. We urge our superintendent and school board to pause this drastic reshaping of our schools and to work directly with the community to find solutions for our children.

Our district is filled with smart, passionate people who love our schools and communities. We are the best sources to help inform the next moves for this place that we love so much. We are confident that if our superintendent works directly with stakeholders in our community that we can find solutions that are acceptable to families and more compassionate to our children.

Our objections to the proposed plan fall under the categories of: culture, student achievement, transportation, access to programs, and social emotional well-being.

Culture, Student Achievement & Social Emotional Well-Being:

K-5 schools provide a crucial sense of culture and community for young children.  As children grow and develop through their elementary years they are best served by adults that know them and their families over a longer span of years. This provides a sense of security, accountability, and belonging as relationships are formed and deepened throughout early and upper elementary grades.  Educational research has shown that:

• A study from researchers at Syracuse University and NYU found that bullying was less common in schools with a wide range of grades rather than just a few.
• Research has found students generally lose about three months of reading and math learning each time they switch schools.  This is the case even when the move to a new school is voluntary.  Many of our elementary students will go to 3 different schools in 3 years.  Constantly adjusting to a new environment, teachers, school leaders, and support staff will negatively impact them academically and socially.  This will be especially impactful to students with special needs and English Language Learners.
• It is crucial for young people to feel a sense of community and belonging at school.  We are concerned about the emotional toll that so much movement will have on many of our children.
• A study of Miami-Dade County schools found that grouping kids from K-8 had significant short-term beneficial effects on achievement, attendance, and suspension rates.  This is attributed to relationships that school leaders and staff are able to build with families over the course of a child’s elementary age years.  
  Source: https://www.nyssba.org/news/2018/03/29/on-board-online-april-2-2018/what-the-research-says-about-k-8-schools-vs.-separate-elementary-and-middle-schools/
• For further research and information on the academic and social ramifications of this plan please review the included research and writing provided by the Barouch family: One Suffern: An-Alternative-View-on-the-District-Recommendation-on-Grade-Banding

Transportation:

• The proposed transportation plan fails to consider the needs of families and makes our school district a less attractive community to join. We believe that a priority in district reorganization should be that elementary students go to a school that is as close to their home as possible.
• Many families will have to juggle up to 4 different morning and afternoon bus times for their children. This is hugely disruptive to the family unit and is a burden for families with multiple elementary aged children who will no longer be in the same school. For certain families, such as single parents and those with 2 working parents, it may be an impossibility resulting in the need to move.
• Bus delays are not uncommon occurrences.  Every time a bus is delayed our youngest learners will travel for much longer than the projected 30 minutes to arrive home.  This is especially concerning in inclement weather.  
  Montebello and Sloatsburg become unattractive communities for families with young children to join.  No one wants their elementary aged child to go to school so far from their home or to spend so much of their precious childhood day traveling on a school bus.
• Bus travel is a common source of bad-behavior, bullying, and unrest.  Busing our youngest learners from Montebello to Sloatsburg, a minimum of 30 minutes each way, with the only adult being the bus driver is a disaster waiting to happen.  We would not leave students for 30 minutes unattended on the playground or anywhere within a school.  This is too long of a ride for children as young as 4.
• It currently takes a child that lives 1 mile from Viola school about 15-20 minutes to get home on the bus.  It seems very unlikely that students will be able to travel from Montebello to Sloatsburg or from Sloatsburg to Montebello in under 30 minutes.

Access to programs:

• As students are forced to go to schools that are far from their home and as parents are juggling multiple bus schedules, many children will no longer be able to attend enriching clubs or before and after school programs.  Parents will not be able to make long driving loops from home to drop students off and pick them up from programs.  Many students will lose access to these programs that they so enjoy.
• Families will also have to juggle more parent-teacher conference days, PTA involvement, and evening events.  Parents will have to choose which school/child to be more involved with.  This plan will make it more difficult for families to get involved and participate in the school community in a meaningful way.  It will also further limit participation and access for families that do not speak English and low-income families with multiple children going to school in different locations all over the district. 

Other Concerns:

When looking at the enrollment data that Dr. Gundersen presented it is clear that he chose years that will make our population decline look the most dire and drastic. Dr. Gundersen specifically selected outlier data from 2013 and 2020 which shows a 23% decline in elementary enrollment.  However, if you look at enrollment data from 2017-2022 it shows only a 9% drop in enrollment.  In the last 2 years there has been a 6% increase in K-1 enrollment district-wide.  This is not to say that we don't have to think about our school and our changing demographics, we would only expect that the most relevant data be used to make such an important decision.  

Conclusion:

We request the following before the board votes on this restructuring proposal:

• With the understanding that one of our schools may need to close we would like to see an alternate plan for restructuring our schools that maintains the K-5 elementary education experience. This plan would ultimately redraw our bus lines and catchment zones to keep students in schools that are as close as possible to their homes. This would also ensure that while many students will need to change schools, they will only do so once through their elementary school years rather than the 3 times currently proposed. We believe that continuity in school location and environment is essential for our students’ academic success and emotional well-being.
• We would also expect that as the Superintendent of our district, and a community leader, Dr Gunderson would make a concerted effort with representatives of the community which this is affecting to come up with a satisfactory solution for all stakeholders. Up to this point in time we have been largely excluded from the decision making process outside of an anonymous survey sent during the summer, the results of which were never publicly addressed.
• Lastly the community should be given an actual period to comment on the final recommendation before the BOE votes on the proposal. Currently the community has had no forum or time to provide public feedback to the Superintendents final proposal until after the vote. 

A closing note:

Without elaboration or methodology, Dr. Gundersen lists several programs that his restructuring “may” be able to offer in an enhanced way.  But in our view, if you do not offer a stable, consistent, and joyful school environment for our children, then you have actually offered them nothing.  Making the right decision rather than a hasty decision for our district restructuring will ultimately lead to our district’s success or demise.