Dreams dashed with Sullivan West closings

By KIMBERLY M. Weyandt

NARROWSBURG, NY — When it looked like her children might slip through the cracks, one woman found sanctuary in Narrowsburg only to find out a year later that it may have just been a mirage.

Karri Krol had fond memories of growing up in the little town of Vernon, NJ, a town that grew as fast as she did. So when she had her own children she happily prepared to send them to school for a childhood of small-town memories like her own. But as she walked her son Holden into his first day of preschool, she found that he was the 30th student in the class. The following year Holden would face a school dedicated entirely to kindergarten and first grade students.

“It was not the nice little place it was when I was a little girl,” said Krol. “You just couldn’t breathe.”

“I wanted a small school, a safety net, a place where no child got lost and where you’re not just a number,” said Krol. “I knew it was time to leave home.”

Leaving the only home they had ever known, Karri and Gary Krol packed their bags and brought their two children, Holden, 5, and Cassidy, 4, to Narrowsburg a little over a year ago. They bought a big house on a little dirt road and sent Holden to Kindergarten, nine minutes away from home at the Narrowsburg Elementary School.

“As a new resident in the area the school is the only place I’ve walked into and felt comfortable. It makes it easier to leave your child there and it makes you want to go pick him up,” said Krol.

Within a few months of school, Holden’s teacher noticed that he had a unique learning style.

“The teacher saw the same thing I did and I thought, ‘Finally!’” Krol said. “If I was in Vernon I would still be jumping up and down and no one would care.”

Once his needs were met, Holden underwent a tremendous change.

He has a life-threatening allergy to peanuts that makes him anxious. At Narrowsburg, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t afraid.

“He seemed more at ease. He seems to feel like he’s found his niche and that’s exciting as a parent,” said Krol. “He has finally got the one-on-one attention he needs and he feels safe.”

But then everything changed.

It wasn’t long after their arrival that the wind carried in quiet rumors of the elementary school’s closing. Like a dark secret the history of the merger and Sullivan West’s financial problems flooded out. Then the school board presented the public with a budget that would close the Narrowsburg and Delaware Valley elementary schools and send the students to the district’s campus in Jeffersonville.

On April 22, Krol sat at her dinning room table and popped a sugar-free candy into her mouth to ward off the cigarette cravings she gets when she’s stressed. She leaned back in her chair to check on Cassidy who was busy coloring a picture in the next room. The phone rang but she did not answer it. She didn’t know the history, she didn’t feel the sentiment; all she knew was that the school that had rescued her son from educational drowning would be closed. Her questions are unanswered and her fears multiplied by the increasing talk of long bus rides and less teachers.

“I didn’t know where the Jeffersonville building was. I went for a ride to find out. All I could think was ‘no way’,” Krol said. The nine-minute car ride from the Krol residence to the Narrowsburg building takes the bus between 30 and 35 minutes. So what would the 45-minute car ride from the Krol residence to the Jeffersonville campus be?

“It doesn’t’ take a rocket scientist to figure [it] out,” said Krol. “Do I think my five-year-old will be able to take that ride and have any interest in what the teacher is saying for the first hour and a half? No.

“I don’t think it’s healthy for children to be on the bus forever and I don’t think it will be healthy for them to be in bigger classrooms. If I wanted that I wouldn’t have moved to Narrowsburg,” Krol said.

“I don’t understand the politics of it. I don’t know the history of the merger. I don’t care how long the school has been here and I have no anger toward anyone, but as a mother, this is not okay,” she said.

“I would like to say to Mr. Derry, ‘Pretend you’re me. Pretend your son is allergic to peanuts and your daughter is starting kindergarten. Now put them on a bus for over an hour with people they don’t know and don’t trust. How would you feel?’” she said.

“I don’t want to be part of the problem, I don’t want to yank my children out of the school, but I’m their mother and I will choose their education, just like I chose Narrowsburg.”