Chappaqua School Survey Results: Spend Carefully

Results from a new survey conducted to gauge the mood among Chappaqua school district residents show that they are unhappy with the level of property taxes, yet want to preserve services and expect a good quality of educational investment.

An overwhelming majority, 69 percent, felt that taxes are already too high and that the district should work within its existing funding, while just 29 percent supported a modest tax increase.

However, numbers also showed that residents are supportive of the district's academic offerings. Forty-four percent said that the district should continue its current levels of investment in teaching, while 40 percent said that there should be more investment. An overwhelming majority, 75 percent, also expect property taxes to go up within the five years.

“And so, it’s clear here that people do not want the school district to be investing less," said Nick Crofoot, a vice president at Penn Schoen Berland, the firm that conducted the 252-random person survey from Oct. 5-9.

Crofoot, who presented the numbers to the public at Tuesday's school board meeting, stated that while the community won't be happy with taxes going up, they still recognize value that the district provides. In general, Crofoot explained that people want to see taxes spent judiciously.

Majorites also expressed satisfaction with keeping roughly the current level of administrators (67 percent), the busing distances (60 percent) and the condition of buildings and grounds (74 percent).

Residents also gave varying opinions on the types of services provided. The highest ranking areas included, based on measures described as very important, were "An excellent academic education" (93 percent), student problem solving skills (88 percent) and passionate teaching (87 percent). The lowest-scoring included having broad athletic opportunites (33 percent) and having a student-teacher connection outside of class (34 percent). For the full list, see the copy of the survey that is attached here.

School board members were supportive of the survey.

“It is important to know what the community thinks and what the community values," said Victoria Tipp, who was initially opposed to the idea because she was concerned that the board would take a reactive approach and simply base its decisions around it. Instead, she was satisfied with the survey's look at what residents value. In addition, from what she said that she got out of it, Tipp said, “we’re basically doing the right thing.”

Karen Visser agreed that the district should be careful on the fiscal side.

“I think we’re going to have to be very creative in how we fill those gaps," she said.