As a senior citizen and a long time resident of the Mineola Union Free School District, I am writing this letter in support of the upcoming Mineola School District budget and the re-election of Board members Terry Hale and Will Hornberger.

I have not made this decision without a lot of consideration. I have not been a supporter of prior school boards and administrations. The reason is I believe there were very poor financial decisions made in building the Willis Avenue School and negotiating contracts with the teachers’ union.

I attended the first board meeting where they discussed the potential of school consolidation. I had told my wife that I probably wouldn’t be there too long since I was anticipating the same old rhetoric. What I heard surprised me. I heard the superintendent and members of the board recognizing the need to close schools in order to hold down costs and to maintain our educational programs. Rather than leaving, I stayed, attended additional meetings and joined the CCC committee as a community member without children in the school.

As a member of the CCC, I was totally impressed with the quality of the people who participated on the committee. From the start, as a group, we recognized that there were no easy solutions to the problems we were facing.

Most of our schools are too small to easily support consolidation and currently their geographic location in relation to the student population resulted in significant variations in class sizes on the same grade level. In addition, the location and physical layout of Willis Avenue, our newest school, limited our options.

No one wanted a playground on the roof. We looked at multiple scenarios presented by Dr. Nagler and brainstormed additional options suggested by committee members. Our final recommendation was not one of the original scenarios presented. What impressed me during the discussion was that the members of the committee were committed to finding the best alternative regardless of their personal preferences. We recognized that there were no easy solutions, but that financially we couldn’t support the status quo.

We ultimately supported a Pre-K to second north/south model with Jackson as a cluster school for the third to fifth grades. The community did not support the expansion of Jackson in the last bond vote, thus the fifth grade will be moving to the Middle School and eighth grade to the high school.

We need to continue to move forward with the current consolidation configuration. Speaking as a parent of children whose “neighborhood school” in the 1980s was Meadow Drive while we lived at the intersection of Foch and Wilson boulevards in Mineola, I know firsthand some of the concerns parents are facing.

However, our kids survived, thrived and received an excellent education! The bottom line is, given the additional expenses and the loss of revenue the district is facing, we must consolidate schools to ensure long-term continuation of programs and to hold down the tax levy.

There is a segment of the school community that would dismantle the current plan and leave all the schools open or at most close only Cross Street.

I wish instead of just criticizing the plan and sending out anonymous mailings, they had spent the time the CCC had analyzing the issues and problems. We can’t continue to support the existing programs long term without becoming much more efficient.

As a senior citizen, I want to provide the children of the district with a quality education, but we can’t afford to do that without making compromises. Please encourage everyone you can to get out and vote in support of the budget, the re-election of Terry Hale and Will Hornberger and completion of the school board consolidation plan!

While many senior citizens do not want to support any additional capital expenditures, it makes sense in this case to do so, because of the savings from closing schools. Our schools are just too small to support consolidation of two schools without capital improvements.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. Whatever your position, please get out to vote.

This is probably the most important vote the school district has ever faced. At a current annual cost of $30,000 per student and New York State mandated expenses increasing each year, we must minimize annual increases by making significant changes to preserve educational programs.

Rick Ueland

Mineola