If you’re a sophomore, junior, or senior, you’re bound to know someone from Tuckahoe, and if not you are probably wondering, “What’s a Tuckahoe?”
Tuckahoe, a school district in Southampton, has a huge conflict going on regarding a merger between the Tuckahoe and Southampton districts. The main problem caused by this consolidation is that if the merger passes, the Tuckahoe students currently attending WHBHS will be forced to go to Southampton High School for the school year of 2014-2015 and on.
This past January, the Tuckahoe district decided to perform a merger study in order to see the pros and cons of merging the two districts. This merger caused confusion to the Tuckahoe families who had students attending WHBHS, for it was not specified whether or not the students would be allowed to continue their education at WHBHS. The Tuckahoe Board of Education came to a conclusion that would allow their students who were already attending WHBHS to continue, however, no more students from Tuckahoe were going to have the choice to attend WHBHS.
In early August, The Southampton Press published an article describing a change in the status of the merger, where the Tuckahoe students attending WHBHS would be forced to attend Southampton High School. The reason for the change was due to the Southampton District wanting to use the allotted tuition money for the WHBHS students – amounting to approximately $1.1 million – to be given back to the residents in the form of taxes.
This outraged Tuckahoe families who felt they had been lied to, for they had already been told their children would be allowed to continue their educations.
According to Frank Zappone in an article in The Southampton Press, the main reason the merger is proposed to be profitable is because it will save $7 million in costs to create a larger budget (which the community would have to vote on). The merger will also allow for a decrease in taxes for Tuckahoe residents and an increase in taxes for Southampton residents.
In his reasons stating why the merger would be beneficial, Frank Zappone said, “Sustaining and/or increasing AP and Honors courses with addition of all Tuckahoe District students to the high school.” This is a blatant statement basically praising all the Tuckahoe students who are attending WHBHS, so why would us Tuckahoe students want to go to a school that has a worse education?
At this point, there will be a straw vote October 29th by the two districts, to see if there is a favorable response for the merger. If one district votes it down then it will die, however, if both districts vote for it, then there will be a statutory vote December 5th by the state.
When asked how she felt about the merger, junior Freesia Ferrantino said, “I feel like the districts are putting the money above the students’ interests. The students should come first. If this merger goes through I will most likely tuition in to WHBHS.” Other Tuckahoe students agree with Freesia, as junior Liam O’Brien said, “You can relate this situation to war, we are being sent to a place we do not want to go, and have little say whatsoever. I will move to EQHC because I refuse to attend Southampton High School.”