Posted by Written By: Lila Disciullo, Staff Writer
Over the past few years, members of the New Paltz community have been at odds over school budget uncertainties. Many solutions have been brought up and shot down in hopes of saving our district’s financial crisis, the most recent being the idea of closing our beloved K-2 school, Duzine. This plan was proposed due to the harsh decline in students that are entering the school district. The Junior class of 2026 currently has around 160 students, while the current Kindergarten class has 90. As the possibility of eliminating this school has spread to all members of the community, the general reaction has been rather negative.
On February 5th at 5:30 pm, parents, teachers and students of the New Paltz community gathered in the Middle School auditorium for a Board of Education meeting. During the open forum section, several speakers shared their opinions on the matter of closing Duzine and not a single one was in support of this plan.
The facilities committee came in to explain the plan to the group through a slideshow presentation. The plan includes moving all K-2 students from Duzine into the 3-5 school, Lenape. The 5th graders at Lenape would then be moved into the Middle school. This would mean that an addition of a new 5th grade wing to the Middle School would be necessary, which would be expensive. In addition, they plan on expanding the playground at Lenape, another costly sacrifice. Many concerns arose about the mixing of the grades (K-2 with 3-4 and 5th mixing with 6-8) that have never inhabited the same school buildings before.
Janice Hoffer, a longtime educator at Duzine, came to the stand with several strong arguments against the closing of Duzine. She first brought up the point that the facilities at Lenape are not made for students who could be as young as 4 years old. Hoffer also shared how her daughter attends summer camp at Lenape and she couldn’t open the door because it was too heavy. It fell back on her and she didn’t want to go back to camp because she was traumatized by the experience. This could easily occur to any other young K-2 students who are small and unfamiliar with being around older students. The next conflict that Hoffer had was with the library. Duzine has so many books in the library that are aimed at K-2 aged students.
“It would be impossible to move all the books into Lenape’s library. There isn’t space. And there will be no empty classrooms to put those books in either,” Hoffer said.
Another speaker at the Board of Education meeting during the open forum was Matt Elkin, a first grade teacher from Duzine who has been teaching there for 18 years. Elkin, much like Ms. Hoffer, was opposed to the plan. He specifically was against it happening so soon, being that the board wants this plan to happen in the Fall of 2026. Elkin said that the plan seems “overambitious” and “short sighted”.
“It would require lots of cleaning and preparation, which would be extra money.”
Matt Elkin
Elkin also posed the question of “What would we do with the building?”. Having experience with renting houses in New Paltz, the teacher knows that the school is nowhere close to being ready to rent out.
Another option is selling the school. It is a much more permanent decision, although it would be easier as the school could be sold as is. However, if numbers go up again and the school is sold, the middle school / Lenape would become overcrowded and more issues would be faced. Statistically, children under 18 in families have decreased, so it isn’t just that people don’t want to live in New Paltz, declining numbers is a global issue.
Seemingly, our community agrees that the closing of Duzine seems very rash and unnecessary, especially considering the recent events of the rejection of Prop 3 in the budget election. Matt Bialecki came to the podium and shared his opinion on the topic.
“75% of our community voting against the pool was an absolute fiasco. Talking about expanding facilities and then 2 months later talking about closing down facilities is unacceptable,” Bialecki remarks.
As for Superintendent Gratto’s stance on the matter, he says that: “Two questions need to be answered: ‘Can you close Duzine?’; and ‘Should you close Duzine?’”. He says that we do have the ability to close it, according to the facilities committee. He did not comment on if he thinks we should or not.
The Maroon 