KLSD voters give green light to Pre-K center at Lewisboro Elementary

CROSS RIVER, N.Y. - Given a second chance, voters on Tuesday approved plans to turn long-closed Lewisboro Elementary School into a center for universal prekindergarten services.

The superintendent of schools, Ray Blanch, said he was "thankful, obviously, for the entire school district."

The vote was 1,586 to 1,275 and reversed a stunning rebuff five months ago, when Katonah-Lewisboro School District voters narrowly defeated a more expensive LES conversion last spring.

But that 1,433 to 1,411 outcome, registered on May 19, came before universal pre-K (UPK) became state law. Only days after KLSD voted, the state legislature decreed that every 4-year-old will be entitled, effective September 2028, to a seat in either a public or private school’s classroom.

It will supplant KLSD’s current lottery approach to determining which applicants—only about one in four—can enroll in a pre-K class. For now, that’s the province of private preschool services like the Country Children's Center (CCC) in South Salem.

KLSD plans partnerships with CCC and other providers—Katonah is expected to have two of them—to deliver pre-K services. They’ll hire the teachers while district administrators will oversee curriculum and pass along the state’s $10,000 per child reimbursement.

But the cost of providing UPK-compliant facilities—classrooms, restrooms, play areas—falls to the district. Voters in May effectively denied permission to borrow the LES money.

Stung by that defeat, KLSD officials sought to learn why, soliciting feedback through a survey and focus groups over the summer. In the fall, using local libraries, school board meetings and Zoom’s cyberspace stage, they fielded residents’ questions and heard their reaction to the district’s new, scaled-back answer.

Cost, the issue that doomed the original, $24.5 million UPK bond question, remained an abiding concern even after an 18 percent reduction in the price tag. Surely, taxpayers seemed to say, there’s a less expensive way to meet the state’s mandate.

Turning the unused LES building into an Early Childhood Center gave KLSD an option other districts don’t enjoy, Blanch noted. “We have a very unique situation where we have an asset in place now that just does not exist in other communities.”

But the asset must meet strict state Education Department standards.

Moving 4-year-olds into school facilities built long ago to educate older students means more than removing padlocks from the doors of dusty, unused classrooms. Counter-intuitively, the square footage required for these smallest students has to be greater than that allotted for K-12 classrooms. Toilet facilities—they are required to be in the classroom or immediately accessible from it—must have either lower fixtures installed or legacy ones retrofitted to accommodate the youngsters.

South Salem’s LES opened in 1940 and has not served students since its controversial closing in 2014. A school board committee, charged with investigating options for the building, determined that demolishing it would be more expensive than refurbishing the structure.

So, a year ago, with UPK appearing to be a sure bet, the district announced an ambitious proposal to turn part of the Bouton Road building into a combination community center and gym as well as at least eight UPK-compliant classrooms. By the time it went to voters in May, its estimated cost had grown from $20.6 million to $24.5 million, too high a price for at least 1,433 residents.

Voters again passed judgment today, this time on the less expensive plan, which scraps the community center but retains the classrooms, enough to seat 152 students, and the gym.