With the Valley Central School District seriously considering a second public bond referendum vote before the end of the year, the Board of Education has scheduled a special work session at the Valley Central Administration Building at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 25 to discuss the details of a proposed referendum package.

During the session, which will precede the regular board meeting (postponed from Monday) the administration is expected to present the board with options for a new referendum proposal that could potentially include three propositions for taxpayers to eventually cast votes.

The special session will take place one hour before the council’s regular meeting next Wednesday. Representatives from the CSArch architectural firm, the company the district hired to design the original referendum package, will be present at the meeting to help detail the new proposal. On Aug. 20, residents voted down the district’s first $22.7 million bond referendum package by an airtight 30-vote margin.

During the board’s Sept. 9 meeting, Valley Central Superintendent John Xanthis noted that the district’s working concept for a second referendum proposal could feature three props for voters to decide on. The first proposition could include safety items that the district deems vital, including the renovation of the High School-Middle School complex parking lot. The second proposition would then include additional infrastructure items that were contained in the first referendum, and the third proposition could be centered on expanding the capacity of the high school parking lot.

If the district presents a referendum to voters with multiple propositions, the second and third props could not pass unless the first prop is approved by voters. The first prop focusing on safety could include the redesign of the Montgomery Elementary parking lot that was included in the August bond vote. “I think it would certainly include Montgomery,” Xanthis said. “That’s an issue there with the buses and we need a better parent drop-off and things like that.”

Valley Central will work with CSArch in advance of the Sept. 25 board meeting to carve up the original $22.7 million in funding and disperse it between the three new props. “We’re going to meet with the architect and we’ll be prepared to present something at the next meeting,” Xanthis said. “It’s just taking what we have allocated already. There might be some things added, like we might look to do some things with Walden Elementary under safety, but we want to meet with (Walden Village Manager) John Revella and some other people there to maybe take a look at that.”

The district has a tentative target date of Dec. 10 for the referendum vote. The administration has stressed that the referendum must be passed before the State Department of Transportation begins its own work on Route 17K, and if the safety proposition were to pass in December, the work on the parking lot’s entranceway on Route 17K could commence next summer, before the DOT installs a traffic light outside the parking lot.

During last week’s board meeting, Trustee Sheila Schwartz questioned the timing of a December vote. “It’s the holidays, and there’s so many reasons you’re not going to get people to come out again,” she noted. “I think Brad (Conklin) said, if we go out with this and it fails again, we have to wait a full year. I just feel like we’re still trying to rush this again and it may or may not pass. You’ve got to hope that it does. Is there not a better time of year? Maybe January or February when you get your taxes.” “A lot of people have different theories on that,” Xanthis replied. “One of the theories is that December is a good month for it actually, around the holidays.”

Xanthis said that if the board does approve a second referendum vote in December, the district will have to redouble their efforts to get the word out to the public about the vote. In August, the district’s referendum presentation (and a mailing to residents) included an error in the calculations for the tax impact the project would have on homeowners. “We have to do a better job of selling it to the public,” Xanthis said. “Because of the timing last year, we didn’t want to talk about the referendum before the budget vote. There were a lot of things that we could have done differently, but this will give us the chance to sell the program. We want to make a video and put that on the website. We’ll do a Q & A and some other things, just so that people have a much better idea of what they’re voting on.”

The original proposal contained an option to purchase land near the high school that could be used for additional parking space at the complex, and the proposed third prop could include funding for the parking lot. “Whether we buy that land, and I don’t know if it will be available, we certainly need to speak about some additional parking,” Xanthis said. “There was money in that $22.7 million to do that. There was money to buy the house, but there was also money to do the parking. So that money is still in there.”

During the board meeting, the district announced that Valley Central had earned a 94 percent graduation rate for the 2018-2019 school year. The administration credited the Alternative Learning Center (ALC) at Maybrook as having a major role in boosting the district’s graduation rate, among other factors. “They really work hard with the freshmen so kids get assimilated,” Xanthis said of the high school staff. “They have a freshman orientation, because the research shows that if kids don’t have a successful freshman year, they’re probably not going to make it through. We’ve been talking a lot about mental health, and I know that’s been an issue with the state, but we’ve been doing a lot with mental health in this district for a long time. ALC is really the biggest thing we’ve done with mental health, because a lot of those kids were kids that were sent out for programs that weren’t appropriate for what their issues were. We finally figured that out, that these kids just needed a more therapeutic setting. It’s been tremendously successful. I don’t know what the rest of the county has done, but I think you’ll see that the large schools our size with the 3,000 kids, I don’t think you’ll see graduation rates like this. I think the difference is the kids that we get through because the ALC makes a big difference and the mental health initiatives that we’ve been doing for years have come to the forefront. I think that’s all a part of getting kids through, to make them feel a part of something. So we’re proud of that.”