The chart below compares the maximum tax levy allowed, arrived at by a complicated formula, and the approved HCDS budget over the past four school years. For 2022-2023 and 2024-2025, the approved budget represented an increase that was significantly below what was allowed. For 2023-2024, there was no increase in the tax levy. For the current school year, 2025-2026, the increase was the maximum allowed: 3.55 percent. For the upcoming school year, 2026-2027, the maximum allowed is 7.33 percent.
Another bit of information of interest is that HCSD currently has close to $3.2 million ($3,186,057) in grant revenue. That is on top of the district's $58.5 million ($58,544,000) budget.
Bailey's presentation on class size, which across the broad averages 20, revealed how many students are enrolled in the Hudson City School District. In the elementary school (PreK through Grade 5), there are 670 students; in junior high (Grades 6 to 8), there are 320 students; in senior high (Grades 9 through 12), there are 484 students. That is a total of 1,474 students. With a budget of more than $61.7 million, that works out to more than $42,000 per student.
The question, which clearly does not have an easy answer, is why, given how much money is being spent, doesn't HCSD achieve better outcomes?
On a topic different but related to this, there are two seats coming vacant on the school board. The terms of Kjirsten Gustavsen and Michael Zibella expire this year. Anyone interested in running for a seat on the school board can obtain petitions from board clerk Leslie Coons: coonsl@hudsoncsd.org. Signed petitions must be submitted by April 29 at 5:00 p.m.
COPYRIGHT 2026 CAROLE OSTERINK
Leslie - you guys never answered our FOILs about how many National Merit Scholars (commended, semi-finalist, and finalist) HCSD has produced over the last 25 years.
ReplyDeleteShould we resend?
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Almost every other school district in Columbia County answered it in a few weeks or less, two sent us paper copies with kind handwritten notes.
We salute the ladies of Germantown and Ichabod!
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Friendly reminder that Philips Exeter, Deerfield, and Hotchkiss (elite prep schools) cost around $50k per year for day students.
So we can send top HCSD students there if we chip in ~$10k Hudson Youth Center Funding (currently at $800k per year for a few dozen students).
And the following top schools are $42k per year or less:
> The Roxbury Latin School (MA):
Consistently ranked as one of the best all-boys schools in the world.
> Germantown Friends School (PA):
One of the top-ranked schools in PA. It's famous for its Ivy League funnel and Quaker values. We hope they serve quaker oats a lot.
> The Pingry School (NJ): Always ranked as the #1 or #2 private schools in NJ, a state with famously good private and public schools.
> African Leadership Academy (ALA)
Hell, we can send students to the Johannesburg/SA based African Leadership Academy for $30k a year (room and board), 3 return flights a year would be $6k. A typical high school class of 100 (same as HCSD) sends 15 students to the Ivies + Stanford/MIT on full rides.
That is better than all of Columbia County (5x grade 12 student), which is basically surrounded on all sides by good universities with massive endowments.
Closer to home....
> Hawthorne Valley (Ghent)
Waldorf and nature, one of the most diverse private schools in NY, top College placement track record. $15 to $25k based on year.
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Of course not all HCSD students want to attend these schools, or can attend / test into these selective and expensive schools. Surely many are very happy and content at HCSD.
And of course there is incredible value in other forms of secondary, tertiary, and vocational training.
Especially now given how the economy and AI is changing.
And yes, public schools have special ed mandates, a heavier social burden, but even allowing for that, the math at HCSD is staggering.
The point is that we are spending more than the most expensive and elite schools in the country, where foreign and local leaders and royals send their kids for "preparatory" polish before university, and where those kids are joined by the most promising students from humble backgrounds, made possible by endowments and these high fees.
And are our graduates prepared for the real world, capable of achieving their dreams? Moving toward independence?
The point is not to blame the hard-working teachers, there are no doubt many wonderful teachers making magic against the odds.
The majority of students are likely kind and well intentioned, and many hard-working.
The point is to say out loud what we all know:
- At HCSD, the sum is less than the parts.
- If we truly cared about students, in all quartiles of performance, ability and effort, we'd reconsider how we allocate our school taxes.
At what point is this a moral failure?
Not only for the students, who may face lower life-time earning potential or have to carry more student loans because they were less competitive for bursaries and financial aid.
But because the expensive school taxes are pricing out long-term residents and fixed income retirees.
All right, I'll say it. HCSD is a moral failure. And we residents are moral failures for not speaking up; by saying nothing and continuing to pay taxes to an organization that doesn't care to educate its children we participate in that diseducation. I invite all you silent ones to explain yourselves instead of patting your backs about running a successful political party.
DeleteIf the state of Alabama can teach its kids to read and understand words, do arithmetic and engage in critical thinking, so can the HCSD. The issue here isn’t the people, it’s the pedagogical philosophy, the failure to focus on phonics, the failure to take a common sense approach to teaching addition and subtraction, etc. it’s the wrongheaded desire to make all students “equal” rather than fostering excellence where it exists.
ReplyDeleteIt’s well past time that BoE bloviation and ineffective educational trends were tossed in favor of straight talk and actual teaching and nurturing our youths.
It might be worse than it seems.... For some reason the Board seemed intent on finishing the District's Board of Education Goals and Objectives report (https://www.hudsoncsd.org/boe/policies/goals-and-objectives-policies/) which embeds a terrible policy to keep "achievement" held down. (Goal 2). This is a legacy of the Pennyman era.
ReplyDeleteRight out of a Vonnegut story. Insane.
DeleteI'm not sure if it's Vonnegut, Heller (Catch 22) or Orwell (1984), but a close reading of what the Board is supposed to do (it "directly supervises only one employee: the Superintendent") and what it actually does (preparing budgets of $50+ million), you understand (or not) how it can get away with firing a Superintendent, calling it a resignation, and keeping the public from knowing how many public funds were spent to "accept" her resignation.
ReplyDeleteOk Peter. I know you’re read in to the shenanigans at the BoE. But I’m not, and I’m very interested! The board fired the supe?! Spill, baby!
DeleteAs you know, John, when lawyers get involved and the BOE won't talk, somethings up. And when the rumor is that she got $200k to leave, then something serious is up. Doesn't the public have a right to know where its money is going?
DeletePeter / anyone -
DeleteIf someone gave you a $1m in unrestricted funding, litigation support, grassroots mobilization, get out the vote support, whatever a high-agency parent type person would do in CA / TX, to fix this and help kids do better in the long-run.
What would you do? Who specifically would you recruit? How long would it take?
For example:
A) elect high-standard and unified team of board members to control the entire board and do a hard pivot turnaround?
B) lobby Albany to
b1 - merge it with functioning districts NY Education Law (Articles 31 and 37)
b2 - shut it down (Charter School not a choice here?)
b3 - have NYS take it over?
C) organize a massive voter rejection of the budget for several years to force it into Contingency Budget in perpetuity.
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It seems if we could get 600 voters to vote no, it would defeat the budget.
If anyone knows the head of the local teacher's union could you please encourage them to write a Guest Op-Ed with us or any other publication to share what the typical voter may not understand about this issue.
What is the root cause of HCSD's dysfunction?
Surely it must cause severe cognitive dissonance to train to become a teacher, one of the hardest and most noble professions, and then achieve these outcomes year after year.
HPD and HFD can walk with dignity because they do their jobs, we know it, we see it, they know it.
HTA - no doubt many great people, but the (lack of) results speak for themselves.
And for Kamal and Co. if still around, this is about poor and middle class residents subsidizing overfunded schools, Youth Center and NGOs... that leads to the students, when no longer within the aid-industrial-Hudson, not thriving.
Wealthy residents can bypass this issue, and they do... which makes this in some ways a moral issue of equal opportunity.
Zanotelli - if you are reading, can you please blast this on FB (maximum effort) so that we can see how people feel, and who will fall on which side of the campaign?
It's always a great probing exercise to see the nodes.
Dear Common Sense, the answer is simple: Give me $1m and I start a charter school, which we had in Hudson for a brief shining moment in 1995 (fact check please!) when we were supposed to open in St. Mary's School.... The local Teachers Union fights the charter and wins because so many local "smart" people think that teachers unions are beautiful and charter schools are right-wing. So let's go to the next solution: what is the root cause of the district's dysfunction? The answer: not asking the question. What the current board doesn't dare do is ask the question: what is causing our dysfunction? How do you get the BOE to do that? Get new board members. How do you get new board members? Elect them.
ReplyDeleteDear Peter -
DeleteCharter Schools are a great idea but still subject to many regulations.
(Now legal in NY but weirdly hard capped at ~500, imagine putting a limit on something good, like a hard limit on gyms in the state, or a hard limit on vegetable farms, or just books in general)
Better to go private for the school in NY though... because if you hit 250 students in a charter school, then the teachers automatically, even if against their own will, automatically join the local union... which is why most charters in NYC stay just below 250 students.
Even if you launch the charter school, and then keep it under 249 students, then the public school is still at current performance levels.
And most people prefer public schools (the idea of integration and joint learning), all but one of our editors are products of public primary and secondary schools.
And wouldn't that make the city even less equal from an equality of opportunity perspective?
And then some parents would pay both public school taxes, and private school tuition.
That's like Nigerians or Brazilians who have to pay property taxes for police AND hire private security because the police is corrupt.
Hence - going after the root dysfunction.
Just looked up the 2025 public salaries:
https://www.seethroughny.net/
Bear in mind in NY $100k in salary usually = $50k in benefits and insurance. So if someone is paid $100k the cost is really ~50% higher.
Not including benefits (we assume?),
- 3 people make more than $150k,
- 65 people make $100k to $150k, and
- 72 people make $50k to $100k
There are just under 400 people getting paid.
So that means for every paid person, there is 3.75 students. Many no doubt admin and drivers and not teachers.
If any of the teachers or parents or students are reading this, could you please write a Guest Op-Ed about what is going on at the school. (Student population going down, cost to tax payer up, outcomes down)
editors@HudsonCommonSense.com
Also, it seems HCSD spends ~$5m on transportation... but the drivers are presumably on the payroll?
Bill Muirhead (head of HCSD Transport) - could you please write to us or on the school blog why transportation in such a small area is so high?
Consider that the vast majority of students are in Hudson/Greenport, and in any other country you would just carpool the kids in Stockport (7 miles is farthest point from the school).
Request for Guest Op-Ed from 3 highest paid folks at HCSD:
Reardon, Derek W
Brenneman, Mark A
Kortright-Torres, Elsa
Perhaps we should address the elephant in the room and just admit that this is really an issue of separation of classes. The Hudson schools have issues that stem from family situations...kids with language barriers, attendance problems, and no support at home. If every family who sends their kids to HV & CMS turned their attention to Hudson and got involved, we’d be having a different conversation.
ReplyDelete🎯
DeleteAmerica's challenge is not race, but class.