School board approves closure of Beitel Elementary
The district’s oldest elementary school will shut its doors this year as students move to Spring Creek. The consolidation will take on an accelerated timeline at the behest of families and staff.
The Albany County School Board has unanimously approved the closure of Beitel Elementary School.
During a special meeting Wednesday, the board decided current Beitel students will finish out the academic year in their current building, then start attending the nearby Spring Creek Elementary in the fall.
“The term ‘better together’ comes to my mind,” Superintendent John Goldhardt said. “Are there cost savings? Yes. But what’s more important to me is what’s in the best interest of our little ones. Convenience for adults sometimes becomes a prevailing worry, but the needs of our kids should always be first.”
The closure of Beitel was first pitched as a response to both the district’s budget shortfall and enrollment projections which show the district losing roughly one elementary school’s worth of school-aged children in the next half decade.
The 73-year-old Beitel Elementary — being older than Spring Creek, Linford and Slade Elementaries combined — would have cost the district $4.5 million in major maintenance over the next five years, according to projections shared by Goldhardt during a presentation earlier this month.
The district has not yet decided what to do with the old building once students move out.
“We’ve seen that nobody wants to close a school,” Trustee Alex Krassin said. “But … we have financial concerns that are real and they’re not going to be solved with an easy solution.”
Accelerated timeline and community input
The vote Wednesday grants a request from members of the community to speed up the closure and consolidation. Previously, the board had floated the idea of leaving Beitel open one more year — through spring 2025 — to give Beitel families a year to prepare for the move and district staff a year to gradually bring the two school communities together.
But when it became clear that a buffer year would mean two schools persisting well below capacity and sharing resources, such as a principal and counselor, Spring Creek teachers and Spring Creek and Beitel parents urged the school board to speed up its timeline and merge the schools in time for the fall 2024 semester.
“This is an emotional process but we are making a decision that best benefits the students,” said Brandy Vialpando, a second grade teacher at Spring Creek. “Increased class sizes, increased expectations from the teachers, challenges for our shared principal, instructional facilitator, specialists and counselor, as well as the stress and potential burnout are things to consider should you choose to say no to consolidation.”
The school board voted ‘yes’ to this accelerated consolidation. Trustees said the weight of public comment — and the strong argument those commenters raised regarding the benefits of an accelerated consolidation — was persuasive.
“I had been feeling very strongly that this consolidation should not happen until the 25-26 school year,” Trustee Carrie Murthy said. “What shifted for me and started to change my mind around the timing was the sheer volume of direct requests — even though it wasn’t a proposal on the table — that we make this shift happen sooner rather than later.”
Murthy said those requests came from staff at both Beitel and Spring Creek and from parents at both schools, as well.
Support for consolidation is high, but not universal.
“Closing a school is never the answer,” Beitel parent Jordan Anderson told the board. “Last fall, Beitel parents and teachers showed up to fight for our school for weeks after being told just a few days prior that our school would be on the agenda … Our concerns were dismissed, told our motions were high, and that they cannot play a part in this decision.”
Board Chair Beth Bear objected to this characterization, arguing the board had been transparent throughout this process — by discussing the matter publicly even when it was just a proposal, by hosting a public hearing to gather community input, and by being responsive to that input by speeding up the timeline.
“This board has and will continue to operate with transparency and to involve stakeholders and the public in discussions and decisions,” Bear said. “Laying out a plan months ahead of time about topics is transparent. Holding several meetings with staff and parents about upcoming changes is transparent. Having numerous public meetings and public comment times is transparent … Circumstances change. That does not mean a lack of transparency.”
What will the consolidation look like?
The consolidation of the two school communities will be steered by a “unification taskforce” staffed by teachers and parents from both. The process of unification will involve:
Beitel students taking field trips to tour Spring Creek.
A Spring Creek open house for Beitel parents.
The selection of a new mascot by students.
A celebration at Beitel, recognizing its long history.
The merging of both schools’ PTOs, with new elections for officers.
New signage and a crosswalk for Spring Creek.
The distribution of students such that every single classroom in the unified Spring Creek has students from both Beitel and Spring Creek.
“Is it possible to accomplish this before the 2024-2025 school year? Yes. Will it be difficult? Absolutely,” Goldhardt said. “However, this entire leadership team that sits behind here tonight is prepared and committed to make it happen.”
Beitel staff will be compensated for the time and difficulty involved in packing up their old classrooms and setting up their new ones.
Jeff Stender, currently the principal of Beitel Elementary, will take over as principal of Spring Creek once the schools are merged. Goldhardt said no one at Beitel will lose their job as a result of this consolidation.
“The question we get the most: Will anyone lose their job? No,” Goldhardt said. “One teacher will need to be placed in a different school where there is an opening. One administrative assistant will be placed in a different school where there is an opening. One nurse will be placed in a different school and two custodians will be placed at different schools, where there are current openings for next year.”
The district’s school boundaries will be redrawn, but likely after the merger. Goldhardt said former Beitel students who moved to Spring Creek will be “grandfathered in” and will not be made to move again once those new boundaries are set.
The closing of Beitel was most definitely NOT universally supported. In fact, at the meeting in the fall when this first came to light, the outpouring of support against closure was such that it was standing room only in the district building with people spilling out onto the sidewalk. It was so powerful that the Board decided to wait on the decision. Then, interestingly enough, a letter went out to Spring Creek that the GATE program was being moved to Indian Paintbrush and then there was ONE public meeting about this, where Spring Creek pleaded for earlier consolidation. Then, instead of holding to the timeline they had previously established there was another immediate meeting and then the vote. There has been no transparency about this from the beginning and the assertion of “several” public discussions and meetings, and meetings with staffs and parents, is a lie.