Congers Elementary, A Town in Trouble.

I am really worried that our school is going to be closed. The Board seems to be selling it as not worth it to fix and continue running. They got an outrageous bid on the cost to fix it, and are getting the taxpayers in school district to be worried about their extra costs, and also an implied threat that if Congers doesnt close one of their schools might end up closing instead due to class size. Their propaganda looks like we are just being selfish and want out kids to go to this school because it is conveneint. I think that would even be an acceptable reason, but that isnt it. Our school is on the main street of our town. It is a beautiful historical building and many of our kids walk there, and play there. Many of our town businesses live off of the business the school brought to our area. The closing of the school is the decline of our town. 

we pay a lot of taxes... taxes that make other counties go WTF! we are not affluent here, most of us are hardworking families who live here so our kids can go to a good local school. if we wanted out kids to ride a bus for 20 minutes we could live upstate and pay minimal taxes compared to what we pay here. 

And now I am going to get personal. I have 3 little ones and am a single parent and a home owner. I have invested a lot personally to stay here so that my kids could attend this school. The staff is excellent and supportive and we feel good going their each day and being greeted personally by Mrs. Ryan. One of my children is in a special education program. where will he go? will he be bussed totally some other place while my other elementary aged child goes to a different place? The answers to this question are very vague. "nothing will change." How can that be? His school is going to be closed! Will they be on different schedules? What if I don't have access to a car and someone needs to be picked up? Even now if there is a snowstorm I am worried because the kids are riding 20 minutes instead of just 4-5 minutes. especially since the Board seems to not like closing on snow days instead preferring to have early dismissial or delays. should little kids be riding on busses 20 minutes though snowstorms? this does not seem in the best interest of the kids, but I digress. 

Where is all the money? No one can answer this question it seems. Many schools are in disrepair, and there should be a maintainance schedule. What kind or preventative maintainance is being done? Congers supporters are being held up as selfish people who only want their schoiol fixed while other schools also need things. We never wanted that. we wanted a bond to address all the schools, but also transparency on how the money is getting spent. 

also, we want an independant engineer to look at the damage and give us a real estimate. i am having severe trust issues with the Board and theinformation we are being fed by them. 

we are being railroaded here in Congers, and other schools and residents in our district need to take a hard look at what is happening. This could be you next year. What do you think will happen if the board decides YOUR school isnt worth fixing? How about if your kids get sprinkled into empty seats in other schools because there is room? How about if you had a big building wasting away on your main street, and the local businesses were dying because of it? Is this really about one town being "whiney"? They are creating a blueprint of how they will handle this issue going forward. If this works, they will employ the same methods again and again. Believe it.