Fox Meadow Parents Object to Proposed Elementary School Re-Districting Plan

A Demographers report for the Scarsdale School District released to the community on Friday October 24, 2025 has raised alarms among a group of Fox Meadow residents.

The report examines population trends in each of Scarsdale’s five elementary school districts. Due to a projected increases in the number of students in Fox Meadow, and the availability of space in the Greenacres Elementary school, the report explores the re-districting of 60 Fox Meadow students to Greenacres.

Read the Demographic Study here:

Below find a letter from a group of Fox Meadow Residents sent to us by Michael Fructer. Below that find a response from the Scarsdale Board of Education. The Board meets Monday night October 27, 2025 and members of the community are invited to attend and speak.

Dear Members of the Board of Education,

We are parents and friends of the 60 children who Statistical Forecasting LLC proposes to rezone from the Fox Meadow elementary school to the Greenacres elementary school and other residents that live within the contemplated redistricting zone. We write to express our strong opposition to the proposal to rezone our children, and urge the Board to reject the proposal.

While Statistical Forecasting’s report notes that the proposed rezoning is “advantageous in that most elementary school students would continue to be educated in their current school”, their proposal is highly disadvantageous to our children, some of whom who will be ripped from their school and away from their friends and others who would be deprived the opportunity to attend the elementary school they have been looking forward to. This letter details the negative impacts to our children that will come from rezoning and suggests that the Board consider alternative solutions to the challenges facing Fox Meadow.

Negative Impacts

Impact on our Children, their Development and Mental Health: We all moved to Scarsdale because of the quality of the schools. None of us could have imagined that our children would be forced to switch elementary schools mid-stream or be barred from attending the neighborhood school down the street. There are numerous science-based developmental considerations that militate against forcing our children to switch from Fox Meadow.

For children in Kindergarten and 1st grade, trust and predictability are key in day-to-day life for optimal social-emotional development. Uprooting children from their community during these early years will have lasting impacts on their ability to form meaningful attachments and social bonds. Even current pre-school students in the neighborhood have already been integrated into the community - they have chosen their pre-school classmates to create continuity through elementary school, practiced the short walk to Fox Meadow school and its playground, and recognized their place as part of Fox Meadow. For children ages 6-12, daily life is expanding, they begin to blossom in their hobbies and interests and social lives flourish. Maintaining predictability and security are key developmental aspects of these growth steps happening successfully. Sharing new experiences with close trusted friends, with these friendships having built up over time in their school community, are key components to our children thriving. The proposed rezoning will have an incredibly negative impact on our children in this regard. Moreover, our children know Fox Meadow, and the Fox Meadow teachers and staff know them. Forcing our children to switch to Greenacres at this critical time in their development will sever the relationships they’ve built with the Fox Meadow team, with resultant negative effect on our kids.

We also note that Statistical Forecasting’s tone-deaf report ignores these critical points. Our children’s educational, psychological, and emotional development require they be considered. Reliance on statistical analysis, while ignoring the key human elements, is horribly misplaced.

Impact on our Children’s Safety: The proposed rezoning would have a significant negative impact on our children’s physical safety, and on our ability to get our children to school. We purchased our houses because they are within easy walking distance of Fox Meadow, on streets with limited car traffic. The proposed rezoning would force our children to cross Fenimore Road, which is a very busy street, with high car and truck traffic. Vehicles regularly exceed the posted speed limits. There are frequent traffic jams and accidents. There are also a limited number of crosswalks and traffic lights, and notably no areas to cross between Fox Meadow Road and Brewster Road where these displaced students will be walking to school. Adding a 15mph school zone speed limit to Fox Meadow will only exacerbate these problems, adding to congestion and making it more difficult for pedestrians and commuters to safely cross. While many of us allow our children to walk by themselves to Fox Meadow, none of us will allow them to do so because of the dangers posed by crossing Fenimore. This will force many of us to drive our children to school, which will increase traffic substantially and cause delays for parents as well as commuters and the broader community in this area. The proposed rezoning also increases the commuting time to school for each and every student impacted.

Impact on our Community: The community we know in Scarsdale is based around the Fox Meadow school. The friendships our children developed at school carry over to their after-school hours, the time they spend in each other’s yards, and their weekend activities. Removing our children from Fox Meadow will weaken these friendships, to the detriment of our children and our community. An eight-year-old can’t casually dash across Fenimore Road to one of their friend’s houses, like they can on many of the streets in Fox Meadow. Moving our children to Greenacres will have a significant negative effect on our and our children’s integration in the Fox Meadow community.

Solutions

We recommend that the Board consider a wide range of alternative solutions. Members of the community have asked whether it might be possible to send non-Fox Meadow residents to Greenacres and/or other elementary schools in the District. There is also considerable support for the proposed construction project to increase space at Fox Meadow. We recognize that any solution will likely involve difficult tradeoffs, and there are different opinions regarding the best solution. Nonetheless, we are united in our view that the Board should reject the redistricting proposal.

Please note that we are still digesting Statistical Forecasting’s report, and this is our first communication in response. We hope to engage productively and collaboratively with you to identify better alternatives to this redistricting proposal.

(From the Scarsdale School Board Vice President Colleen Brown)

It is important to understand that no decision has been made when it comes to redistricting and there is no proposal to do so at this time.
As you know, we are in the process of developing a capital projects bond to present to the community for support. This effort began last spring. Between March and September, a representative stakeholder group studied the current conditions of our buildings, current and projected enrollments, and other relevant factors to develop a comprehensive assessment of needs at each of our district schools — including Fox Meadow. That analysis identified two key challenges at Fox Meadow: enrollment pressure and aging facilities.

The committee has recommended to the Board that Fox Meadow needs additional classrooms, and a proposal outlining how that expansion might occur has been discussed publicly. During these discussions, a question was raised about whether adjusting elementary school boundaries could serve as an alternative to new construction — recognizing that construction is the most expensive option for addressing space constraints.

As part of our due diligence, we hired a demographer to analyze current and projected enrollment. This ensures that the proposed projects will effectively meet student needs. The demographer’s report, which was just received on Friday, includes data related to redistricting as part of a comprehensive report. Reviewing all data and potential options is part of our commitment to responsible planning and full transparency with the community. It’s important to note that exploring redistricting as part of this analysis does not mean it is a desired or planned alternative. The study was commissioned to ensure the Board considers all viable options transparently.
The Board has not discussed redistricting as an option yet, and when it does, that discussion will occur as a full body, in public, for the first time tomorrow. No decision will be made at that meeting. The process depends heavily on public engagement — through emails, public comments at Board meetings, conversations at Board coffees, public information sessions like the one held on October 16, and the Capital Projects Bond survey, which closed on Friday. The opinions of the Fox Meadow community — and all district residents — are critical, and we strongly encourage everyone to participate, listen carefully to the report, and ask questions.

All information related to the bond proposal — including presentations, reports, and meeting recordings — is available to the public on our district and bond-specific websites. These resources reflect the thoughtful and diligent process behind the proposal.

Our next Board of Education meeting will take place on Monday, October 27, and all community members are welcome to attend in person or via live stream. You can find links to both the Board and Bond webpages below.

https://www.scarsdaleschools.k12.ny.us/board-of-education-information
https://www.scarsdaleschools.k12.ny.us/99236_3

I hope this helps address your concerns. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have additional questions.

Nicole Bartelme asked us to post this comment:

Children who are currently attending Fox Meadow School should NOT be re-zoned. Residents move to specific areas of Scarsdale for specific reasons. This is not random. Proposed construction to FM is NOT the solution, financially unnecessary.

NEW non-residential students could be re-zoned. (Existing non-residential students should be allowed to stay as well as their up & coming siblings). The parking lot at Fox Meadow could be staged for TEMPORARY, (repeating, TEMPORARY) class rooms creatively.

Would like to better understand how many children space is needed for, and the forecast moving forward.