The Tuckahoe school district will put to referendum the purchase of a private property adjacent to the William E. Cottle Elementary School, paving the way for a capital project which would require a separate referendum later this year.
Carl Albano, the schools superintendent, said that the district was looking to buy property to facilitate a larger capital project when it learned that the private home across the street from the elementary school was up for sale in December.
The district has scheduled a March 14 public referendum with the hope that voters will approve the purchase of 110 Ridge St. in Eastchester for $660,000 from its undesignated fund balance. The district has made a 10 percent deposit on the property, of which all but $15,000 is refundable.
Albano said the district would likely build an administration building on the property, allowing the district to move its current offices out of the conjoined middle and high school building on Siwanoy Boulevard. But the district would have to demolish the existing structure at 110 Ridge St. as it would not comply with state codes for an administration building.
A new administrative building would free up space in the middle and high school building for as many as three additional classrooms, which could begin to mitigate overcrowding, which has become a mounting concern throughout the district, especially at Cottle, where the student body is over capacity.
Although moving the district office to 110 Ridge St. would not directly affect the population concerns at Cottle, it would spark the district’s plan to enact a larger planned capital project, which could include building a second story on a wing of that elementary school. That project, if approved by voters in a likely second public referendum later this year, could cost between $20 million and $31 million, which the district would bond for. According to Albano, the outcome of the March referendum would help to set a scope of work for the later bond referendum. “If we are the owners of 110 Ridge St., then [we] will really look to refine the capital projects,” he said, noting that the district has proposed several projects, but would have to prioritize the ones the district would likely vote to fund.
Regardless of the outcome of the March 14 referendum, the district would put the larger capital bond to vote at the end of this year.
That capital project would also address infrastructural concerns, and would allow the district to update classroom space. The current proposal aims to build Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, STEM, classrooms in the elementary school and an up-to-date library and media center in the middle and high school. But according to Albano, addressing an expanding student population which is beginning to strain the district’s facilities is a main priority of the project. “The big driver is surging enrollment,” Albano told the Review.
The current enrollment at Cottle is 641 students, but the school is ideally suited to seat 559. “We’re getting creative and using every inch of space, but everyone recognizes in the community that we need to do something to expand the space,” he said, adding that gym locker rooms in that school have been converted into classrooms over the last several years.
The capital project would likely go to referendum for a bond in October or November of this year, according to Albano. Currently, the district’s Moody’s credit rating is Aa3, meaning it is a considered a low credit risk and has a strong ability to borrow.
