With Housing Off the Table, Wainscott Wants a Deal

The East Hampton School District has rejected the Wainscott School District’s late request to sign a multiyear contract that would give Wainscott a discount on student tuition in exchange for an agreement to send all of its children to East Hampton after they finish schooling at Wainscott.

All of East Hampton’s other sending districts signed that same contract in the spring, but Wainscott declined to do so at that time because of what its officials said was uncertainty attached to the 48-unit affordable housing complex that had been proposed within the school district’s boundaries. School officials fought that proposal, saying it would have overwhelmed the tiny district’s financial resources and space in its two-room schoolhouse.

But in recent months, the Wainscott housing proposal was taken off the table. Town officials voted earlier this month to endorse an affordable housing project in Amagansett by a separate agency, the East Hampton Housing Authority.

During the Oct. 6 town board meeting, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said the Wainscott project “may not be moving forward as proposed” by Windmill Village Housing Development Fund Corporation, the group that developed the St. Michael’s senior citizens housing in Amagansett and the Windmill complexes in East Hampton. Gerry Mooney, the co-manager of those housing complexes, said yesterday that the corporation had been given a definite “no” on Wainscott.

During the Dec. 16 meeting of the Wainscott School Board, David Eagan, its president, said the reason the district asked East Hampton for a new chance to sign the tuition contract was that “we have a more certain view of what our population is going to be.”

The contract would have given Wainscott a 5-percent discount on the tuition rate, which this year is just under $25,000 per student for general education students in 7th through 12th grades and about $26,700 for those in kindergarten through 6th grade. For special education students, the rate is just under $69,000 per student in 7th through 12th grades and just over $73,000 in kindergarten through sixth grade. During the 2014-15 school year, Wainscott paid tuition for 34 students attending East Hampton schools.

“We would like, subject to the boards’ further discussions, to go back to the traditional arrangement, to sign on to what was offered to us in the first instance,” Mr. Eagan said. “I think everyone has a better view of things right now. . . . Affordable housing was a key factor that we were deeply concerned about. That clarity has allowed us to go back to, for lack of a better word, join the club.”

 However, Rich Burns, the East Hampton superintendent, said by email on Dec. 17 that “at this time, the East Hampton board is not amenable to this extension.”

 J.P. Foster, East Hampton’s school board president, explained yesterday that “it’s kind of hard for us to do anything different” because each of the sending districts had been given the same opportunity to sign the five-year agreement at the same time.

“We had offered everyone the same deal, and because of budgeting we had to have a commitment. We had to know by a certain time,” Mr. Foster said. “That’s really all it came down to. . . . I don’t know how else to do it.”

Stuart Rachlin, Wainscott’s superintendent, said Mr. Burns had informed him of such. In response, he said in an email that “we’re hoping that East Hampton will reconsider, especially since our initial ‘no’ response was not a dissatisfaction with East Hampton as much as our inability to commit in light of the housing issue.”