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Schools

'What If?' Scenario Proposes Tuckahoe School Becoming Pre-K to 1st Grade

A potential merger of the Southampton and Tuckahoe school districts would redistribute students among three schools.

A study of what the merger of the Southampton and Tuckahoe school districts would look like proposes a shake-up of how both districts' school buildings are used.

The study was undertaken to demonstrate to voters of both districts the impact of a merger, if they decide to approve it. The use of school buildings is just one part of the multifaceted study, which also examines costs and savings and reorganization of the administration.


The biggest change would come to the Tuckahoe School building on Magee Street, which currently serves children from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.

The study, prepared by consulting firm SES Study Team with the aid of community advisory committees from both districts, proposes that Tuckahoe School be used for pre-K through first grade.

Expected enrollment during the 2014-15 school year is 311 kindergarteners and first-graders, and 90 pre-K students. The maximum capacity would be 390 kindergarteners and first-graders and 90 pre-K students.

Southampton Elementary School, which currently serves pre-K through fourth grade students, would become a second- through fifth-grade school, with an enrollment of 612 students and capacity of 644.

Southampton Intermediate School currently includes fifth grade to eighth grade, and would become a sixth- through eighth-grade school, with 448 students and a capacity for 606.

Southampton High School would continue to serve ninth- through 12th-graders. Tuckahoe School District, which doesn't have a high school of its own, sends most of its high-school-age students there already.

For the merger to go through, a non-binding straw vote by residents of both districts would need to be held, according to Southampton Superintendent J. Richard Boyes, Ed.D.  If voters favor a merger, then New York State could authorize a binding vote.

Click to read the study: "A ‘What if’ Program/Staffing Picture of a Reorganization of the Two School Districts into One."

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