Letter: The State of Education in New York

To the Editor:

Re: “Pine Plains School Board Slashes Nearly Half a Million in Programming and Services“

With school election season upon us in New York, the realities of a shrinking student population are wreaking havoc on school budgets as they try to adhere to the state’s “tax cap” law. It’s no secret that New York’s population is shrinking and that young families are being chased out by unaffordable housing issues. As such, school districts are losing their “economy of scale,” and the resulting costs per student are growing rapidly. School districts are dealing with a quiet pressure that adds to their budgeting difficulties in the form of unfunded mandates coming from the governor, the Legislature and the state Education Department. Also, the expectation that school districts address a wider range of behavioral issues has shifted mental health services into schools.

While schools and boards of education have been slow to adjust to this reality, there are limited options in their arsenal. In most schools, salaries and benefits equate to somewhere in the range of 75% of the budget. Required courses still have to be taught, whether there are 20 students in the class or 12. Bus runs must cover the same geography, as student shrinkage doesn’t concentrate in one portion of a district. The expectation that school districts deal with an ever-widening scope of student mental health issues adds to unrecognized costs. Special education costs for the most challenged of our students are significantly higher than those for mainstream students, yet they are mandated. And health insurance costs continue to outpace inflation by a scary amount.

With all these financial pressures from a shrinking student population, building utilization becomes a difficult and unpopular topic for boards of education to rebalance quickly. Public resistance to closing a building pits parents of students against older populations and significantly slows the adjustment to actual need. Those conflicts play loud for volunteer trustees on boards of education, thus further slowing the need for economic rebalancing.

The resulting conflict takes the form of the general population insisting on downsizing both staff and buildings, but without affecting the quality of education; no easy task. As districts move to resize a particular area, its constituency cries foul. Downsizing has its economic needs, but rarely a consensus of where it should happen. The complex structure of the educational world has become harder for trustees to translate to the general public. This complexity opens the door for the rise of “simple answers” to complex problems across social media.

The 2026 election process will likely prove to be a painful one for the education structure in New York. But it would seem the existing structure is on a path demanding redefinition. It’s time for the realities of living in New York state to be recognized, both by districts and by the general public.

Fred ‘Chip’ Couse
Milan, N.Y.