Dan's Papers - May 15, 2009 - Don't Close the School

I watched a movie on TV last week called Last Season. It's about a small high school in a small Midwestern town whose basketball team, year after year, beats all the larger schools in the basketball state championships. The plot is that the state is now consolidating high schools, and this is one of those being shut down. Too bad. So this is to be the team's Last Season.

It wasn't much of a movie, but it did put me in mind of a very important date. It is May 19. On that date, the voters of Bridgehampton are going to make some decisions that will affect the survival of that school. It's a very important election.

There is no state mandate saying that Bridgehampton is being consolidated. But three residents of that school district are running for seats on the school board with the intention of closing the high school (grades nine through 12). Three of the seven seats are being contested. One of the current board members will vote to close the high school. If these three win, the four are in the majority. Those running as a team to close the high school are Joe Condi, Nate Ludlow and Laurie Gordon. If they win, the future of this school could take a dramatic turn. Incidentally, none of these three sends their kids to Bridgehampton. There are claims that none have even set foot in the school.

The arguments put forward by these three is that, except in mathematics, the school has the same the average student test scores achieved by others in the area. They also believe the children will be better off going to East Hampton or Southampton High Schools and thus mixing with a more "diverse" community of students. They claim there are more and different activities in larger schools, and there probably are. Finally, they say that without the cost of maintaining the high school - the school is grades K through 12 - they will save money.

The Bridgehampton School has had a diverse history. Prior to 1970 and the arrival of many of our summer residents, the school was primarily populated with the children of the farmers who plowed the thousands of acres of potato fields that at the time entirely surrounded Bridgehampton. The kid who, perhaps, achieved the most celebrity later in life was Carl Yastremski, the son of a potato farming family who went on to become the star outfielder of the Boston Red Sox in the 1960s. He won the American League Batting Crown for several years, and in one year led the league not only in batting, but also home runs and runs batted in. Only five players in history have won the "Triple Crown" in baseball, and none since him. He is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In the 1970s, as farming declined and the numbers of New York City vacation home owners dramatically increased, a great white flight occurred, as it did in the city, leaving the school with a small population of mostly African American students - many of whom were the children of farm workers. Because of the state mandated laws about schools and the number of teachers and support staff required, these African-American students received a virtual tutorial education that the white community, which was now sending their kids to private or parochial schools, could die for. And so, since the white community, having fled, was largely paying for something they were not getting, they tried to shut the school. The board was taken over. They asked the school district people to shut the school. The district voted. They voted to keep it open.

Today, the school prides itself on the education that the children - black, white, Hispanic, whatever - who go there get. It is still a small school in numbers - there are 165 students - and it remains tutorial in nature. Some classes are five kids and one teacher. This is up close and personal.

Should the school kids be exposed to a more diverse student body? How could they be? The present configuration in Bridgehampton is about 40% African American, 20% Caucasian and 40% Hispanic, with a few kids from somewhere else.

This latest attempt to close the high school has already had its day, actually. Two years ago, the board member hoping to do that proposed that the high school be closed. To do that, the school district has to vote by majority to bring a referendum onto the ballot. But before that, the school board has to provide the voters rational information in order to make their decision. And so, one year ago, at this man's request, the board hired experts at considerable expense to prepare such a study. The report came back saying it would cost the taxpayers dramatically more money to shut the high school down than keep it open. The reason was that the kids would have to go instead to high school in East or Southampton, six miles in either direction, and to do that, the Bridgehampton district would have to pay a whopping tuition to whichever district the kids went to. The amount was so large that, depending on how you configured it, taxes would rise between 50 and 60%.

(Another option, to merge the school with an adjacent district, wouldn't lower taxes. Bridgehampton has the lowest tax rate of all districts that surround it. Taxes would rise 30% in the best merger to be found.)

The report also noted that if the high school were shut, the taxpayers would no longer have any control over the kind of education their children would be offered. The kids would be aliens in a foreign land. The district would pay the "tuition" of about $35,000. After that, East and Southampton would be deciding everything.

The board then voted 6 to 1 to abandon the attempt to close the high school. But the man with one vote sued. His suit demanded a court review the study and rule that a referendum be approved. Three weeks ago, the appeals court ruled that the study was correct and the board was correct and that there was no rational reason to close the school, either financial or otherwise.

One would think, therefore, that this matter is now dead. But it is not. The three candidates, running together with the single objective in mind to take control, intend to spend another pile of money to have another study done. Perhaps, in the majority, they will vote 4 to 3 to proceed to a referendum on the high school closure IN SPITE of either report.

Running against these three are four people in favor of not closing the high school. They are Doug DeGroot, Lillian Tyree-Johnson, Jim Walker and Ronnie White.

Lillian Tyree-Johnson is married to the school basketball coach. Ronnie White is a young African-American man, now 25, who graduated from Bridgehampton High School. He was a star quarterback, went to college and is now an agent at Prudential Douglas Elliman. He is also one of the nicest guys I know in town.

And how does Bridgehampton School REALLY fare academically? It is hardly fair to compare a small school in the Hamptons, particularly one that has a higher proportion of minority kids, to larger regional schools that still have white majorities. But Bridgehampton surprises. I've looked at the state mandated achievement scores. Bridgehampton fits in the middle of the pack with the other five larger high schools in achievement scores, and, in fact, rates not only higher than most in mathematics, but also leads the six in two of the seven categories measured: world history and Spanish. It also rates first in the percentage of seniors going off to college. Every senior in the school went to college last year. And every kid who went is still there this year.

What this leaves these three with is the argument that, in spite of the fact that this minority school is at least the equal of its neighbors, it is better for the Bridgehampton kids to go, at the end of the eighth grade, into a larger regional school environment, where they can mix with a whole lot of new kids from neighboring communities.

You can make this argument. But I think it depends on the kid. Some do better in a larger environment. Some do better in a tutorial environment. The thing is that if you close the high school, you REQUIRE all those kids to go to a school with a larger environment, and you shut off the option for the tutorial environment. After Bridgehampton, consider shutting Wainscott, Sagaponack and Tuckahoe. They are also small schools.

It seems to me, that as things stand now, parents seeking large regional high school educations for their kids can already send those kids off to East or Southampton by paying tuition. Currently, no kids make that trek, however.

Parents can also send their kids to one of the parochial or private schools in the area. There are two private schools less than a mile away in Bridgehampton and about 60 kids who could be going to Bridgehampton go to either those schools or private schools in the city.

Closing the high school will also shutter a small school filled with the enthusiasm and pride and excitement of a close-knit student body, which, in the last few years, has begun to attract "up-scale" kids whose parents had never thought to send them there before. (For comments from these kids, along with photos, go to the recently posted Web site welovebhs.com.) It also has begun to attract kids from every strata who do not do well at big high schools, but who thrive in a small one. I personally know two minority families who last year switched their kids from Southampton to Bridgehampton paying tuition to do so - with the result of their kids going from barely passing to High Honors.

Well, if they do close Bridgehampton High School, it will at least give those school kids the honor of living the movie Last Season, though in real life and without the state's mandate. The Bridgehampton High School basketball team has beat the socks off everybody in its division in the state eight times in the last 30 years. These Bridgehampton Killer Bee state championships are proudly acknowledged on a small sign you see at the western entrance to the Hamlet of that town, which was put up in the late 1990s.

Vote for DeGroot, Tyree, Walker and White on May 19. Do NOT vote for the team of Conti, Ludlow and Gordon. I know them to be nice people but as far as the school goes, they have a wrongheaded idea in my opinion.