Closed Schools, Open Minds

Public school districts in the Hudson Valley have closed more than 40 school buildings over the past 25 years, as district leaders respond to sharp declines in student enrollment, along with political and economic pressure to reduce the burden on local taxpayers.

In this report – Closed Schools, Open Minds – Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress documents the school buildings that have closed throughout our region, the demographic and economic factors that led to these closures, and examples of adaptive re-use projects that brought new life to old schools in our region and across the United States.

From Haverstraw to Hudson, and Maybrook to Mahopac, dozens of communities have wrestled with the difficult decision to close a school building in recent years. A variety of numbers help to tell this story in our region:

• At least 46 school buildings have closed in the region since 1999. The vast majority – 39 of them – have closed since the Great Recession of 2008.  

• About 75% of closed school buildings in the Hudson Valley have been reutilized as housing, event spaces, municipal government centers, or for other types of public or private education. Pattern found that 11 closed school buildings were sitting empty, demolished, or had been sold to new owners without a clear plan for their re-use.

• School district superintendents said they saved at least $1 million on their annual budgets by closing a school building. Those savings come mostly from the associated reduction in staff, but also from lower costs related to building operation and maintenance.

Although many factors have driven school districts to close buildings, declining enrollment has played the biggest part in their decisions. According to data from the New York State Department of Education, there are 47,447 fewer students enrolled in public schools throughout the Hudson Valley now compared to the peak of enrollment in 2003. That represents a loss of 13% of our student body, with some counties seeing sharper declines in their school enrollments than others.

The implications of shrinking enrollment stretch far beyond our school districts and their buildings. Data show that our dwindling youth population in the Hudson Valley will exacerbate a burgeoning workforce shortage in the Hudson Valley, as a wave of retirees from the Baby Boomer generation is replaced by smaller cohorts of new workers entering the labor force. The absence of growth in our full-time population means fewer customers for our local businesses, and fewer people to shoulder the tax burden for local governments, schools, water districts, fire departments, libraries, and more. The steady loss of youth from our communities could also affect the long-term health of our community colleges, which traditionally draw their student population from the pool of local high school graduates.

School superintendents shared three concerns and predictions that could arise from declining enrollment:

• Several feared that it could become more difficult to pass school budgets as a smaller proportion of the community has a direct connection to public school districts through their children.

• Declining enrollment could force many school districts to eliminate specialty classes – think of engineering, technology, and special languages – because the district becomes too small to recruit a teacher with those skills and justify the additional cost.

• The steady drop in enrollment will likely force the conversation about school district consolidation. As graduating classes shrink, especially in our most rural areas, education leaders will need to think about economies of scale and equitable class offerings that give every student the same shot at success.

Five important variables are likely to drive more school building closures in the Hudson Valley over the next decade.

Enrollment – In total, 99 of 118 school districts in the Hudson Valley have seen their enrollments actively decline since 2012. The public school population shrank in every county except Rockland, which was flat during that time.  The total enrollment decline ranged from a drop of 6% in Westchester, to 21% in Columbia and Greene.

Migration – More people have moved out of the Hudson Valley than into it for 25 of the past 26 years. Tax data from the IRS show that many of the households leaving our region include children.

Wages and housing costs – Stagnant wages for the middle class and skyrocketing housing costs in the Hudson Valley are putting more fiscal stress on households. The high cost of living in the region,  documented in Pattern’s annual Out of Reach Report , has played a major role in families deciding to have fewer children.

Tax Cap – The State of New York adopted a 2 percent tax cap in 2011 to slow the growth of property taxes. Although the tax cap can be overridden by approval of 60% of voters within a school district, the cap places school leaders under greater pressure to keep costs low and stay under the tax-cap limit.

State school-funding policy – New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature had a significant debate about school-funding policy in the last budget cycle. Part of that discussion focused on the so-called “hold harmless” policy that does not reduce the state’s foundation aid to school districts even if their enrollments decline. Some believe this should change. The Albany-based Rockefeller Institute of Government is currently studying the foundation aid formula that our state government uses to award dollars to school districts. If a portion of state aid eventually becomes tied to enrollment trends, school districts could be more compelled to close additional school buildings to reduce their costs.

Amid these demographic and economic challenges, many struggle to think about school buildings in the cold, operational context of a budget. After all, the decision to close a school building is deeply emotional. Our schools are sewn deep into the souls of our neighborhoods.

They were the first places where many parents let go of their children’s hands for the first time, leaving them into the care of a teacher. They were home to our first dance, our first concert, and our first time voting at a ballot box. They were community centers where we rallied for fundraisers, cheered on field day, or learned to drive in the empty parking lot.

Through Closed Schools, Open Minds, Pattern hopes to inspire the region to think beyond the last bell when one of our school buildings must close. Communities in our region and across the United States have transformed old school buildings into community centers and event spaces, housing, art galleries, training centers, and mixed-use hubs where people live and work.

The report below includes more information and data to show why so many schools have closed in the Hudson Valley, followed by good examples of school buildings that have been refurbished and reborn as new centers of activity.

By issuing this report, Pattern hopes to inspire the Hudson Valley to think about closed school buildings as opportunities to rejuvenate our neighborhoods and improve the quality of life in the heart of our communities.

"Dwindling enrollment is definitely what is forcing our school systems to close buildings. It's hard for our communities, especially in rural areas where the school is often at the heart of the community. There needs to be a comprehensive discussion about how we re-use them."

The interactive map below shows the 46 school buildings that have closed in the Hudson Valley from 1999-2024. Green dots represent school buildings that have been closed and re-used. Orange dots represent school buildings that have been closed and remain unused, were demolished, or were sold without a clear plan for their future use.

Readers can click each dot to see the name of the school, the school district, the year it closed, and a brief description of its current use.

The following charts show the total school enrollment for each county from 2012-2024. All nine counties have seen their total school enrollments decline during that period, although Rockland County is statistically flat with a total loss of only 24 students.

These charts are paired with two data points that can help us understand whether future enrollment will continue to decline. For each county, Pattern has listed the total births in 2010 and 2021 (the most recent year for which data are available), and the total population of children under the age of 5 from 2010 and 2022. Birth data are from the state Department of Health. Data on the population of children under 5 are from the U.S. Census Bureau.

• Six of the nine counties show a significantly shrinking population of children under the age of 5, which indicates that their total school enrollments will continue to decline. Only Rockland County has seen that population of infants and toddlers grow, while Orange and Sullivan counties are close to being statistically flat.

• The total population of children under 5 in the Hudson Valley declined by approximately 6,000 from 2010-2022.

• Lastly, it is important to note that the most recent year-over-year data on births showed a small baby boom during the Covid-19 pandemic, as the region saw a 7% increase in births in 2021. Pattern expects this to be an anomaly in data, not a true reversal in our long-term trend toward fewer births in the region.

As more school districts face the decision to close school building, it is important to examine demographic projections and enrollment trends together. This will help school leaders base their decision on enrollment trends

• Throughout the Hudson Valley, 99 of our 118 school districts have experienced declining enrollment since 2012. The student body in most of those districts has shrunk steadily during that time.

• In the 2023-2024 school year, 64 of 118 public school districts continued to see their enrollments decline from the previous year.

• In 2023-2024 only two counties had a net gain in the year-over-year enrollment across their school districts - Ulster County and Rockland County. Ulster gained 122 students and Rockland saw an increase of 697 students.
  • The gain in Ulster County was seen rather evenly across multiple school districts, while practically all the growth in Rockland County was concentrated in the East Ramapo Central School District. That district accounted for 622 of the 697 new students in all of Rockland.

• A total of 19 districts had less than 700 enrolled in grades K-12, which indicates that these districts have a typical graduating class or approximately 50 or fewer students each year.

• The painful decline in public school enrollment has been exacerbated by more parents sending their children to private school in the Hudson Valley. State education data show that private school enrollments have jumped by approximately 11,000 students since 2012.

• The increased number of children being schooled from home has also taken a small but noteworthy chunk out of public school enrollments. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, approximately 2,500 students were being taught inside their homes rather than at a public or private school. That number ballooned during the pandemic and has stayed higher than the pre-pandemic baseline. The state said approximately 5,300 students in the Hudson Valley did all their learning at home last year.

Shrinking school enrollments and tight budgets have compelled many school districts in the Hudson Valley to talk about shared services in recent decades. But few have taken action, and some efforts to merge tiny school districts have been rebuffed by voters. For example, the Livingston Manor and Roscoe school districts in Sullivan County share a superintendent and some administrative staff, but a 2022 effort to merge the districts was rejected by a majority of voters. The Livingston Manor district currently has 391 students in grades K-12, while Roscoe has 203. This indicates that their graduating classes number roughly 15-30 students each year.

Civic leaders have also suggested the school arrangements in southwestern Orange County would benefit from shared services or mergers. Over the past two decades, the Tuxedo Union Free School District has shrunk by more than any district in the Hudson Valley. Meanwhile, its neighbors in Greenwood Lake provide schooling up until 8th grade. Greenwood Lake teens used to attend high school in Tuxedo, but now they get to choose between nearby districts in Chester and Warwick. Some public officials in this part of Orange County have begun to discuss whether a merger of at least two of these districts would make sense for the more efficient and effective delivery of public education.

At the same time, many schools across the region have begun to share their football, soccer, and other scholastic sports programs as district enrollments shrink below the point where they can field their own teams. Many that are sharing sports teams are also among the 19 school districts in the Hudson Valley that now have fewer than 700 total kids enrolled in K-12, which means their graduating classes are often fewer than 50 students.

With so many small and shrinking school districts in our region, why has the Hudson Valley not seen more discussion about district mergers? This topic is fraught with emotions and logistical challenges for many parents and community members who would ultimately need to approve a district merger at the ballot box. There are concerns about community identity, large geographic areas that might cause longer bussing times, and debates over which school buildings close or stay open if a merger happens. Working parents and single parents worry about staying involved in the education of their children if a merger closes the neighborhood school and sends their kids to a building farther away.

At the same time, the state has offered significant increases in operating and building aid to districts that merge, as a way to encourage more schools to examine consolidation. According to several education leaders in the Hudson Valley, state education authorities have asked BOCES to facilitate a dialogue with their constituent districts this year about opportunities for regionalization of certain programs to improve student access and success.

Education leaders from the Hudson Valley underscored three factors might force more discussions about mergers in the coming decade: shrinking enrollments, the potential for shifting policy on state aid, and the potential for less educational equity across school districts. Superintendents were particularly concerned about the widening gap between school districts that have a lot of resources, and those that have few, providing some students with access to advanced classes while other students receive only to the bare essentials.

"What we ought to be considering, outside of pure economics, is the current way that our districts are laid out in New York. Can we honestly say that every single student has the same access and opportunity? If not, we need to be looking at more regional or statewide access to education, and thinking about the fidelity of our programming."

It never hurts to have some inspiration. For communities throughout the Hudson Valley who have a school building still looking for its next act - or for those places that might close a school building soon - Pattern has compiled the following examples of adaptive re-use projects from our region and other parts of the United States. This is only a smattering of examples. Shuttered schools throughout the nation have been rejuvenated as housing, medical centers, mixed-use community hubs, and more.

Now it's time for stakeholders in your community to talk about re-using a closed school building. Should you sell it? Lease it? Turn it over to the local town or city? What does your community need and want, and how can the empty school be used to meet those needs?

To get that conversation going - and work toward a successful project with positive community impact - Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress suggests the following steps:

State and federal programs are increasingly interested in adaptive re-use. Many of these programs would apply to former school buildings. Here are a few funding sources that local communities or developers could explore to help make projects financially viable:

Federal and state historic tax credits

Community Development Block Grants

Low-income Housing Tax Credits

 New York Main Street Program (Click for information) 

 Restore NY (Click for information) 

 HOME funds for workforce housing (Click for information) 

Incentives through Industrial Development Agencies

 NYSERDA for projects that include energy efficiency elements (Click for information) 

 USDA Rural Development funds 

New York Forward and Downtown Revitalization Initiative