Survey Favors Maris Buy

Feedback from roughly 500 Sag Harbor residents favored purchasing the former Stella Maris Regional School and transforming it into a center for early childhood education, according to survey results released last week by the Sag Harbor School District.

However, the mostly online survey, which was open for about 16 days earlier this month, found the second-most popular response was not buying the property at all. Its current owner is the Diocese of Rockville Centre, and it has a price tag of $3.3 million. St. Andrew’s Catholic Church operated a school there until it closed in 2011, facing declining enrollment and financial difficulties.

The school board has also voted to put up a bond referendum in the amount of $11,956,763, which represents the most expensive option of the six presented in the initial survey: a center for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, which turned out to be the third-most popular choice in the survey. The total includes the .79-acre property’s purchase price, although the board’s resolution notes that the bond referendum is not to exceed that amount, meaning it can change. The referendum figure also includes about $6.34 million in capital improvements needed to bring the school up to state building codes. Residents will have a chance to vote on it on May 17 at the same time they are voting on the school budget and school board candidates.

The option favored in the survey was a $10.23 million proposal to move the district’s existing half-day prekindergarten classes, some administrative offices, and what’s known as early intervention services to the former Stella Maris school. This would also free up space at Pierson Middle and High School to create what administrators have dubbed an authentic middle school wing.

“Our thought was to then bring in — which we already have tremendous interest in — a full-day day care provider” at Stella Maris, Katy Graves, Sag Harbor’s superintendent, said during a public meeting about the survey results on March 23. That day care provider would be available to parents who would like to pay for before or after-care services to supplement their children’s half-day prekindergarten program. “We would not pay for that day care provider. That day care provider would lease the space from us. That’s revenue coming in to the Sag Harbor School District,” Ms. Graves said.

Moving the prekindergarten classes out of Pierson Middle and High School would enable the district to create a dedicated middle school wing, with several classroom spaces and offices for the middle school assistant principal and guidance counselor. The existing playground would be transformed into an outdoor learning space for science, technology, and art.

The plan would also allow the district to make space at Stella Maris to provide early intervention services, such as speech and occupational therapies, for the youngest special education students. “We would like to get the children early because we know intervention services are so important to children with special needs. . . . That’s also fiscally a smart move for our district, because if we catch them early, those problems don’t blossom,” Ms. Graves said.

Jennifer Buscemi, the district’s business administrator, said the annual operating costs for this option at Stella Maris would be about $177,114, mostly for a school nurse, a security guard, a custodian, utilities, and insurance. That figure represents about .5 percent of the district’s current tax levy.

On its website, the district released every anonymous survey response. Of the survey’s respondents, 24.5 percent said they were parents of elementary school children and about 22.5 percent said they were a retiree age 65 or older. About 19.9 percent said they were residents without school-age children who were under the age of 65. Many of the survey responses included comments, which ran the gamut from “bravo” for the hard work and innovation of the school board and Ms. Graves, to “not needed.”

“With so many updates and repair work needed at the two buildings we currently own, it is troublesome to think we are discussing purchasing another building in need of repair work. At $10,000,000-plus, this is not a good use of the community’s money,” one comment read.

Another read: “So much good can be done with the purchase of Stella Maris.”

One commenter said the property could better serve the community as a medical facility or affordable housing, and another said, “Please don’t do this as older residents are being taxed out of their homes after working hard all their lives.”

Still another said: “Leaving Stella Maris to be purchased and used for anything other than our kids would be a mistake. Our youth programs are lacking in comparison to other towns. . . . The recent drug use rise in our young community and surrounding areas is frightening, and all the more reason to invest in our children’s future.”