Fun Fact: Why are the school districts called ‘union free?’
August 1, 2024 at 12:14 a.m.
The Port Chester and Blind Brook school systems differ in many ways—class size, student-to-teacher ratio and number of schools, to name a few. But they do share something in common that is often overlooked—a naming convention.
While colloquially known simply as the Port Chester and Blind Brook school districts, the official names, in their entirety, are the Port Chester-Rye Union Free School District and the Blind Brook-Rye Union Free School District.
Parts of those names are straightforward. Both are within the Town of Rye and are named for where they are or what’s nearby.
But what’s with the “union free” bit?
It certainly doesn’t have to do with labor unions, as both districts employ members of teachers’, administrators’ and staff unions.
So, what does the name actually mean? Blind Brook Superintendent Dr. Colin Byrne has also found himself asking that question.
“I didn’t really know what it meant when I came here,” he said. Byrne, who’s been with the district for nearly 20 years, said it wasn’t until much later that he finally decided to do some research.
“It was maybe five or 10 years ago,” he recalled, describing it as a quest out of personal curiosity. “I needed to have a good answer for when my family and friends would ask about it.”
The name, he found, is related to how the districts were formed. There are several types of school districts in the state, differing in size, structure, how they are governed and what services they can provide.
According to the New York State School Boards Association, the smallest districts are known as common districts. Run by a board of education consisting of anywhere from one to three people, these entities are not legally allowed to operate a high school, though they’re still responsible for the secondary education of their students.
This puts a lot of pressure on those school districts. They must organize students’ travel to other municipalities just to attend high school. In 1853, New York State legislators voted to allow any number of common school districts to merge, thus creating a union free district.
This new category was legally allowed to operate a high school in its locality. Another change over the common districts is that the union free districts have a larger board of education, ranging from three to nine members.
According to the New York State Education Department (NYSED), Port Chester and Blind Brook are among the 151 union free school districts that still maintain schools in the state.
What is particularly interesting about the districts, however, is the area of students they serve. The NYSED school district guide notes that most union free districts have boundaries that match that of the municipality they serve. However, this isn’t the case in Port Chester and Rye Brook.
The borders don’t match because of when the districts and villages were established. Prior to its founding in 1982, the Village of Rye Brook was an unincorporated area. “It was called the unincorporated area of the Town of Rye,” Byrne explained. “But the people in the area wanted to set up their own school district in the 70s, or earlier, so they did.”
After the high school was built in Fall 1973, the Blind Brook School District was named after the body of water that runs through Rye Brook and covers the area it was approved for. But when the Village of Rye Brook was incorporated later, the borders were different.
As the Port Chester School District is older than Rye Brook, it served some parts of the unincorporated town until the new village was founded. Byrne said that it’s caused some confusion at times. “We’ve run into challenges sometimes because some people live in the Village of Rye Brook but can’t attend the schools because they aren’t actually in the district,” he said.
Byrne wasn’t sure why a merging of common school districts is called union free, and the NYSED doesn’t make any mention of it either. Nonetheless, it’s the reason behind the name.
“It’s very odd,” he said. “You wouldn’t think it had anything to do with how the district was pulled together.”
Comments:
You must login to comment.