CROSS RIVER, N.Y. - Katonah-Lewisboro school officials are asking the community what they think should come next for the former Lewisboro Elementary School.
School Superintendent Ray Blanch said a survey soliciting the residents’ views on LES will be mailed to more than 14,000 homes and businesses by the end of this week. The survey comes less than a month after voters narrowly rejected proposed financing that would have resurrected the shuttered school as a pre-kindergarten learning center.
Under a timeline Blanch presented at the school board’s Thursday evening (June 4) meeting, community feedback and financial data will be collected and considered by the board next month. In August, drawing on the residents’ input as well as consideration of the facility’s condition and financial analysis, the board will determine specific next steps for LES. By September, with the building unoccupied and decommissioning started, implementation of a “path forward” would begin.
KLSD voters had been asked on May 19 to approve borrowing $21.5 million to renovate the deteriorating LES building, creating a pre-kindergarten center to meet what was expected to be a state mandate to provide such services for any school district’s 4-year-olds. By a 22-vote margin, 1,433 to 1,411, residents said no to the bond.
In the time since that KLSD vote, lawmakers in Albany have also voted, installing pre-k services as a statewide right, the superintendent said.
“The Universal Pre-K Mandate now is not ‘going to be’ a part of state law; it is state law,” Blanch said. “Every single school district across the entire State of New York has to identify how they’ll do the best they can to put that in place for 4-year-old children in the fall of 2028.”
Proposition 3 on last month’s ballot, the $21.5 million LES bond, was supposed to finance KLSD’s answer.
Better communication might have changed some views on the bond’s price tag, a Goldens Bridge resident told last week’s school board.
“I think,” Beth Uretsky said, “what the community was missing was a little bit more information in terms of why . . . we have to spend that. What were the other alternatives? And why weren’t they the best solutions?”
As for KLSD’s upcoming survey, Uretsky called the district’s outreach a “great effort,” but said, “Basically, if you sat down with some of the community for 10 minutes, we could probably tell you everything you’re going to need to know in that survey.”
The only other speaker addressing the board on Thursday was Lewisboro Supervisor Tony Goncalves. For years, Lewisboro has rented space in the former school to house several town functions, including assessment, planning, zoning, building inspection and justice court. But the town got an eviction notice last year, citing safety concerns that will shutter LES by the end of August. Lewisboro’s town services will have to be provided elsewhere.
“We did purchase a building [on Route 35 in Cross River],” Goncalves told the board, “so we’ll be moving everyone out by Sept. 1.”
That “everyone,” however, did not include the town’s police force, six full-time officers, including Chief David Alfano, and 15 part-timers. They have operated for more than a decade out of a temporary structure, resembling a large trailer, at the former LES.
As recently as last March, Goncalves said, the district had told him the police could continue in those quarters till August 2027. “Yesterday [June 3], I was told that’s not possible,” he said. “We have to vacate by August of this year.”
Imploring KLSD officials to provide some leeway, the supervisor said, “We’re in a bind. . . . We would like to have more time.” With “fast-track” development, he said, a proposed new headquarters, on Spring Street in South Salem, could be ready a year from this August.
The school board is expected to return to the LES question at its next meeting, June 18.
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