Chester says no to Greenwood Lake students

Chester — Greenwood Lake students will not be attending Chester Academy in 2007, the Chester Board of Education decided Wednesday. The unanimous vote puts to rest the idea that Greenwood Lake would send 358 high school students — and the tuition to pay for them — to Chester. Both the Chester and Greenwood Lake school boards held meetings in December to gauge public opinion. Greenwood Lake residents wanted to look further into the proposal, but the approximately 100 residents from Chester who came out to the meetings wanted no part of it. Chester School Board President Mary Luciana said it was only fair to “run the numbers” to see how taking the students would affect the district. “It is quite clear that bringing in the students would be a problem,” Luciana said. Adding Greenwood Lake’s students would have brought the total number of students at the Academy to 856, nearly 250 more than the building could hold, according to figures Luciana received from the Canon Group, the building management company that oversaw the building of the new high school. Based on a state formula, known as the Seneca Falls formula, the district would be able to charge $8,535 in tuition per student, bringing in over $3 million in tuition to Chester. The cost to the district would be approximately $2.3 million, leaving over $700,000 in profit to the district. However, that does not include supplies, textbooks, and materials. Greenwood Lake residents have sent their high school students to Tuxedo High School for the past 23 years. This K-8 district pays Tuxedo over $12,000 for each of its high school students. The Greenwood Lake school board has petitioned the state education department for its own high school but was turned down. In an effort to save taxpayers money, Greenwood Lake is shopping for a new home. Its contract with Tuxedo expires in June 2007. Greenwood Lake school officials could be not reach at press time to find out what’s next.