Board of Education Moves Budget, Chayes and Kemp End Terms

The Scarsdale Board of Education voted to request the collection of $123,477,125 from Scarsdale and Mamaroneck taxpayers following voters' 70 percent approval of the District's budget. After a downward reassessment of $13 million in property values in the Village, which occurred after the budget plebiscite, the Board reached into a surplus to make up $200,000 and keep the tax rate at the level voters approved.

Other actions included approval of a new text book and the approval of bid awards for custodial and food supplies, as well as the renewal of contracts for youth counseling through the Scarsdale-Edgemont Family Counseling Service.

Additionally, two board members, Dr. Linda Hillman Chayes and Mrs. Barbara Kemp, finished their six-year terms. They were lauded by other members of the Board and by several members of the community, as well

The budget collection request was mildly contentious. Linda Purvis, the assistant superintendent for business and facilities, formally presented the request, which was itself a formality, for collection of school taxes approved by voters. In doing so, she revealed that the District currently has a budget surplus of $1.4 million, but noted that it was not an event that was likely to repeat itself next year.

"We've cut back significantly in non-personnel costs," Purvis said. "We're unlikely to produce this surplus again. It was atypical...The likelihood is that there will be a tax cap this week [passed in Albany]...If it is passed, it will be draconian." Most of the savings occurred in a self-insured health account.

Purvis seemed to prefer retaining the surplus as a buffer to the uncertain budgets of next year, but also said that it was the Board's decision to make. She mentioned some capital improvements that have been postponed for several years, including drainage on the High School baseball field. 

Following Purvis's statement, Elizabeth Guggenheimer questioned why some of the surplus monies couldn't be used to make up the difference of the downward valuations, mostly of businesses, caused in revenues. After a brief discussion, the Board decided to use part of the surplus to keep the tax rate at the level voters expected when they approved the budget. The decision was unanimous

The rate will be approximately 4.80 percent in Scarsdale. Without the $200,000, it would be 4.97 percent, a difference per household of about $31. Ninety-five percent of the monies will come from Scarsdale.

The Board also voted to approve payments for youth counseling, part of a three-way agreement with the Village of Scarsdale and the Scarsdale-Edgemont Family Counseling Service. The District will pay $205,244, and the Village will pay $242,175 for the year 2011-2012.

The Board also continued the supplemental counseling services to sixth grade students at Scarsdale Middle School, a program that will be paid with federal funds.

The meeting began with a presentation of the District's Annual Report from Superintendent Dr. Micheal McGill, McGill and Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Lynne Shain, who discussed their commitment to project-based learning that combines and develops both critical and creative thinking.

In the past year, Scarsdale has hosted visitors from twenty other school districts who came to observe and share instructional methods, as well as from Australia, China, England and Singapore. The District participated in specialized programs with Columbia College and Lincoln Center, as well.

McGill noted several of the projects students in Scarsdale have taken on at all levels, citing kindergarteners who began investigating where garbage went and ended up making compost, middle schooler students who learned to create linear narratives when they made a comic book and high schoolers who created a Great Gatsby screenplay using source materials from the Jazz Age.

McGill worries that increased standardization and "teaching to the test" will hurt the District's approach, however. "Invasive national and school reform movements, no matter how well intentioned, are threats to Scarsdale's school programs," he said.

"We are under growing pressure to teach to the test," McGill said. "To think more openly you really need to be free to explore."

"We're trying to do something that is in some ways counter-cultural," he continued. "State requirements are going to drive us in a reductive direction."

"If we were to make high test scores our primary goal, I have no doubt at all that we'd be first. We'd have the highest scores. But the end results we most care about in Scarsdale, getting into college," McGill said to laughter, "encouraging kids to be thoughtful, productive people and students... [our program is] rigourous, demanding. It asks kids to think a lot."

Both Chayes and Kemp agreed in parting from the Board that the job was not an easy one, but they left with smiles.

"I think we are in for some hard times," Kemp said, though she was mostly upbeat.

Chayes, a Scarsdale High School graduate who pointed out that her son, seated in the audience, was also a Scarsdale High School alumn, agreed.

"There are some tough times ahead for school districts," Chayes said. "Maybe even tougher than the previous two years. But this community is in good hands."

Editor's Note: In the original version of this article, it was incorrectly stated that Linda Purvis discussed drainage on the Scarsdale High School football field. Purvis was also incorrectly referred to as the District's Business Manager. 

Patch regrets the error. 

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