Palisades’s residents built and owned the school until 1957 when, after the school district was unified, the school was incorporated into the South Orangetown Central School District. Palisadian Alice Gerard was a young student at the Palisades School and remembers fondly that the building had a principal’s office, a nurse’s office and two classrooms. It held grades K-8, with four grades taught in each room. Over the years additional classrooms and a gym were added.

The Palisades school was used for elementary education until 1977. The following year the Oak Tree Playgroup moved into the building. Through the years, it has housed programs such as Rockland Center for the Arts, the South Orangetown Early Childhood Program, South Orangetown SEEC After School, Orangetown Children’s Society and the South Orangetown Family Resource Center. The Children’s Enrichment Center and the Fred Keller School are current tenants. It is also the voting site for local and national elections.

In December, when word started to spread about the possible sale of the building, many members of the Palisades community became concerned about the negative impact of considerable development to our hamlet’s center. However, at a December community meeting the discussions shifted from it being a Palisades issue to a greater issue concerning the entire South Orangetown school district.

When student population decreased a few decades ago, the school district sold the Tappan Grammar building (now condominiums) and rented the Orangeburg School to Dominican College. The Tappan Zee Elementary School on Route 9W was also slated for sale. A group of concerned citizens (including Palisades residents Andy Norman and Eileen Larkin) challenged the school district and blocked the sale. It is unimaginable to think where the current 500+ students would go if that school had been sold.

A few years ago, the district put up a bond to cover the costs of expanding and repairing the infrastructure of its schools. (A demographic report predicted a steady increase of students over the next 10 years.) The first bond wasn’t passed. Removed from the second bond, which passed, was infrastructure repair that now needs to be done (five school roofs need repair). In an attempt to look for ways to cover these costs, four properties are being appraised by the school district to determine their worth: the Palisades School, the Cowboy Fields in Piermont, the Orangeburg Elementary School and the playground at Oak Tree Road and Route 303.

While district officials have said in the past that a sale is not necessarily imminent, those attending various public meetings received a different message. Two board members have stated, “The Palisades School is on 8 ¾ acres of prime real estate”… “We don’t need to wait for the appraisals to come in, we can sell the building now”… “We won’t sign any renewal contracts because we don’t want to paint ourselves into a corner.”

The Town of Orangetown has approved the construction of over 1,000 senior citizen units. It is reasonable to assume that many seniors will be selling their South Orangetown homes to families with children, further increasing student population.

At a December board meeting and the February 12 Palisades Community Center meeting, a number of residents spoke in favor of not selling the Palisades building, recommending that the board look for creative ways to retain the building until needed in the near future. They asked the board not to make a short-sighted decision to sell it for quick cash. With increasing student population, even though the building itself needs infrastructure work, the true value of this building is that it can be used for administrative or educational programming when needed. Once the building is sold, it is gone forever. New real estate when future needs arise will be prohibitively expensive.

Appraisals are expected in early March. The community needs to keep a watchful eye on this situation and come out to future meetings to voice their opinions.

(Meetings will be posted on this website.)