Another school close 10 years ago

Fort Edward facing big decision

March 8, 2021

Morning Briefing

It was 10 years ago this month that the Glens Falls Board of Education made the difficult and controversial decision to close the Sanford Street School.

It’s a reminder to the folks in Fort Edward that this can be done as long as everyone remembers it is in the best interest to the students.

Fort Edward and South Glens Falls stand to reap millions of dollars in savings if they go forward with this merger, and while that will be a positive for taxpayers, the thing to remember is that it will give students at both schools more opportunities.

From, March 2011, here is what I wrote about the school closing in Glens Falls:

By Ken Tingley

Parents are the greatest salespeople in the world.

They sell broccoli and spinach, they pitch early bedtime and brushing your teeth, and, when they have to, they sell that awful-tasting cough syrup because they know it will make their child feel better.

They do this with conviction, and they never back down.

Some use the soft sell, others the hard sell. Sometimes mom and dad play good cop, bad cop, but they convince their kids that what they are saying is right.

Now that the decision has been made to close an elementary school in Glens Falls, it is the job of the parents to sell it to the kids.

If you can sell spinach, you can sell a new school, even if it has left you devastated and heartbroken.

One thing I observed from my years watching kids compete in sports was their resiliency.

I've been in many a losing championship locker room, watching devastated teens bawl their eyes out over an athletic failure, only to see them again 15 minutes later laughing with their friends and borrowing money from still-devastated parents to go get fast food.

Anyone with little kids knows that the difference between giggling smiles and crying your eyes out is often a lollipop.The quicker the parents get their kids on board with the idea of a new adventure in a "new, improved" neighborhood - Hey, it works selling toothpaste - the better off the kids will be.

Unfortunately, closing the Sanford Street School only gets the school district one-third of the way toward the $1.3 million in cuts that are needed.

Board members still have to find another $900,000 to slash, and those cuts have the potential to affect the education of students far more than the closing of a school.

One of the lessons parents have to impart is that life is going to rough you up from time to time with an ongoing series of changes and challenges, and you have to adjust. The reality is that the little red-headed girl may never like you. And somewhere along the line, you may have to change schools, addresses and jobs.

In another school district just across the river, grief counselors are again patrolling the halls this week.

There, the staff, the teachers and administrators have battled, struggled, turned over every rock to try to stop another tragedy, yet this past weekend there was another student death.

If nothing else, Glens Falls parents should be glad that this is the worst problem they face.

Ken Tingley is editor of The Post-Star.

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