Ulster BOCES to use Anna Devine school
Trustees approved a 10-year lease with Ulster BOCES for use of the former Anna Devine Elementary School.
KINGSTON, N.Y. » District trustees have approved a 10-year lease with Ulster BOCES for use of the former Anna Devine Elementary School at $70,000 per year.
The agreement was discussed during a Board of Education meeting on Wednesday, with Superintendent Paul Padalino saying the lease includes BOCES covering utility expenses.
“The Ulster BOCES Phoenix program will be ... using a small part of the school building this year but hoping to expand,” he said. “There’s already some ideas they’ll be some expansion in December or January.”
Padalino said the BOCES program is expected to begin Sept. 5 and has already begun moving equipment into the building.
BOCES Superintendent Charles Khoury last month said the program is a return of an alternative high school for students who have been struggling because of family, behavioral, attitude and motivation reasons.
“Typically these kids are on track to be lacking credits for graduation,” he said. “It tends to be a smaller class sizes where there is more personalized attention as well as supportive services for their social and emotional histories that they may be dealing with.”
Khoury said the move will include having some administrative operations in the building.
“We had a four-classroom trailer at our campus in New Paltz that was about 20 years old,” he said. “The cost of replacing it would have been very, very significant and Anna Devine provides us with some ability to consolidate some of our operations into one place.”
Padalino said the agreement is part of an effort to keep several former elementary schools from deteriorating.
“Four years ago we closed four schools and when we closed four schools we as a board and myself individually stood in front of many members of the community and said we would find uses for these school,” he said. “They will not fall down; they will not fall into disrepair; they will not burden the community.”
Zena Elementary School was sold in 2015 for $926,000 to a group that plans to put a music program in the building; Sophie Finn Elementary School became a part of the SUNY Ulster system; and Meagher Elementary School is scheduled to be renovated into district offices and a prekindergarten program.