Among the many effects of land-use policy in New York’s “Hamptons” over recent decades is public-school enrollment. Together with a general ritzifying of the area, the use of large-lot zoning and other measures has narrowed the availability of fulltime housing for most young families. Each school district on the South Fork of Long Island has seen double-digit percentage declines in the 2000s, even though the overall population has increased. This adds to per-student cost pressures already felt from unionized staff demands and state mandates. (Perhaps not surprisingly, “educator pay per student” for South Fork districts is among the highest in the state.) While classroom performance measures there are middling overall, voters have usually blessed these districts with easy budget approvals, and the same hyperlocal pride seems to forestall what ought to be obvious opportunities for consolidation. Districts of a few thousand or even a few hundred students don’t make sense when located only a few miles apart. The Sagaponack Common School District has one school, K-3rd grade. Southampton Unified’s school board is finally facing fiscal pressures, the Press weekly is reporting, and, in a first, a long-bruited merger with the neighboring Tuckahoe primary school may be in store.
Hamptons Has Bigger Homes and Emptier Schools
