A decision on whether or not to close Merrimac Elementary School needs to be made by March 1, per New York State deadlines.
Potential elementary school closure among possible changes in Sachem School District due to budget shortfalls A decision on whether or not to close Merrimac Elementary School needs to be made by March 1, per New York State deadlines.
The Sachem School District has until Saturday to decide if shutting down a school could be a solution to its budget shortfall. Merrimac Elementary School is the school the district is targeting. It is one of several ideas discussed at Wednesday night's board of education meeting. Others include merging JV and varsity sports teams from Sachem North and Sachem East to form one team per sport for the entire district rather than each high school having its own team, increasing the elementary class size by two students, and eliminating certain late buses as well as combined middle school sports. The gap is $1.8 million — and could be as much as $6.5 million — when factoring in things like extracurriculars, clubs and sports. “We are $1.8M short just by what we are required to do by the state so, to me, we are insufficiently funded by the state mechanisms right now and that’s even using our leftover funds,” said Trustee Michael Isernia. “If we were to close an elementary school we would have a savings of approximately $2 million for the closure, and if we were able to rent that building out to another entity, we could recognize approximately $600,000 in recurring revenue,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business and Operations Michele Psarakis. A decision on whether or not to close Merrimac Elementary School needs to be made by March 1, per New York State deadlines. “What happened last night was outrageous. As a matter of fact, there’s a school policy that requires community input when you’re going to close a school, so what did the board do? They suspended the policy at the last second. The community has no knowledge that Merrimac was being chosen,” said Jim Kiernan, a former school board president.
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