Cobleskill-Richmondville Central School

At the Board of Education Meeting on Thursday, January 29, the District announced its intention to engage in a long-range planning process, with the assistance of an educational consultant.

The Cobleskill-Richmondville Central School District is committed to educating, inspiring, and empowering our students, and providing them with the best available opportunities, even in the face of declining enrollment, rising costs, and limited funding. 

These are challenging realities for our district. Since 1998, the District’s enrollment has declined by 35%. While New York State has begun using the legal Foundation Aid Formula to calculate state aid for schools, the formula places heavy emphasis on enrollment, without weighing the cumulative impact of unfunded mandates and the rising costs associated with educating students and operating schools. Given our history of declining enrollment, this is not a favorable model for C-RCS, or rural schools in general.

As we continue to face these challenging realities, we must look for the most efficient ways to serve our students and maximize their opportunities. To that end, the District plans to engage with an educational consultant to support our work. 

The educational consultant, who has yet to be selected, will conduct an optimization study to help us identify the best use of our facilities and resources to meet our students' needs. This study will become part of a long-range planning process that will position the District to effectively plan and implement the most impactful strategies.

In the coming weeks, the District will issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) from educational consultants who specialize in this kind of work and can adapt their expertise to our unique needs. The selected consultant will collect and analyze data, engage with stakeholders, and present a comprehensive report to the District.

The District is dedicated to leveraging efficiency as a means of balancing high quality education and fiscal responsibility. The optimization study will help inform our work in pursuit of this goal. 

More information will be shared as the RFP and consultant selection processes unfold.