CROSS RIVER, N.Y. - A scaled-back, less costly revamp of the former Lewisboro Elementary School, cutting more than $4 million from an earlier, voter-rejected plan, was presented last week to the Katonah-Lewisboro school board.
The new proposal retains the LES renovation’s centerpiece: facilities for universal pre-kindergarten services. But other economies shrink the borrowing vetoed at the polls—$24.5 million—to $19.95 million.
Dr. Ray Blanch, superintendent of KLSD schools, led a discussion of the less-expensive alternative plan, LES Path Forward Update, at the school board’s July 30 meeting. Developed by district officials working with their architectural consultants, H2M, the plan is based on “the feedback that we heard clearly from the community,” the superintendent said.
The district had proposed the $24.5 million resurrection of LES, a venerable but deteriorating building, not used as a schoolhouse since its controversial closing in 2014. Plans included the universal pre-kindergarten center. A state mandate to offer pre-K services for all 4-year-olds was widely anticipated before the May vote; since then, it has become law, effective statewide in the 2028-29 school year.
After voters rejected the borrowing, 1,433 to 1,411, KLSD officials moved quickly to find out why. By early June, postcards were going out to the district’s roughly 8,500 households, inviting residents to “Take the 5-minute survey.” In response, at least 1,152 did, answering questions meant to guide the district in developing the report’s “path forward.”
In their responses, Blanch said, residents made clear that cost, not the pre-K center, drove bond opposition at the polls. A proposed “community center” was singled out as a “weak spot” in the ballot question. It would have opened LES’ former cafeteria, gym and other multi-purpose spaces to civic groups and organizations after a $3 million renovation.
Even among residents who voted yes in May, the community center was valued by only a slight (55 percent) majority and support fell to just 25 percent among no voters. In the reduced-scope plan discussed for more than an hour by the board, the community center’s renovation budget dropped by more than $2 million, from its proposed $3 million allocation in May to $895,000 in the economy version.
In a new vote, pre-K could be treated as a standalone question, Blanch suggested, with the community center becoming a separate issue or simply dropped.
Not surprisingly, in May’s voting parents of current and future KLSD students supported Proposition 3, the original renovation plan. Parents of former students as well as residents without children in the schools did not.
Fifty-six participants, representing parents of current, former and future students and other community members, took part in six focus groups. “A key finding,” the report said, “was broad support for universal pre-K across all groups. Feedback primarily centered on how the proposal was presented rather than the inherent value of pre-K itself.”
“It was not a vote against pre-kindergarten,” Blanch said, pointing to the report’s analysis of residents’ views.
“People did not vote no because they oppose pre-K,” the report concluded. “They voted no due to the cost, the sense that cheaper options were never examined, and doubts about the district's planning.” Most of the ballot-box opposition was attributed to residents with no children in the schools.
Richard Sklarin, a Goldens Bridge resident and the lone speaker in the public comment period, applauded the scaled-back plan. Sklarin, a lawyer and Lewisboro town councilman, had addressed the board in March, questioning whether Prop 3 was the most cost-effective way to implement universal pre-K.
“The presentation tonight,” he said at the July meeting, “confirms for KLSD residents and taxpayers that there was, and that there is, a more-financially cost-effective way to do that. I’m very glad that this board . . . has made significant good-faith efforts to do what needed to be done by reducing the cost of this project.”
The school board and administrators are scheduled to renew consideration of the LES question on Aug. 27.
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