Highlands Current Audio Stories

Tentative budget matches state cap

Cold Spring residents will see the village tax levy rise by 3.72 percent in the new fiscal year, an increase that matches the cap imposed by New York State.

Mayor Kathleen Foley and village accountant Michelle Ascolillo outlined key areas of the tentative 2026-27 budget in an April 2 email.

The mayor commented that in meeting the state tax cap, "We're mindful that everyone is stretched in this economy, and we have to be conservative in our expense and revenue predictions."

While commonly portrayed as 2 percent, the tax cap is often greater due to other factors determined by the state, including an "allowable growth factor" calculated for each municipality.

The village budget includes three major areas. The general fund is supported by the tax levy and pays for nearly all village services, from garbage, recycling and road maintenance to police and fire protection. The water and sewer systems are funded separately by flat rate and usage fees.

The tentative 2026-27 budget proposes a tax levy of $2,057,465, an increase of $73,696 over the current fiscal year.

It is estimated that the tax rate, which determines what individual owners pay in village property taxes, will be $12.65 per $1,000 of assessed value, an increase of 3.02 percent. The final rate will be set by Putnam County. The cost of water will go up by 6 percent for both usage and the flat rate. That amounts to increases of 21 cents per 1,000 gallons used and a $6 flat rate increase per quarter per unit.

The sewer rate will rise 5 percent for both usage and flat fees, resulting in increases of 11 cents per 1,000 gallons of usage and $4.50 per quarter per unit, respectively.

Foley said while the village optimizes state dollars for roadway and sidewalk repairs and upgrades, it is "an area where I wish we could make progress faster" adding, "We have a very small roadways and facilities crew and have to prioritize according to urgency and capacity."

She said including plans for village-branded wayfinding signs and improved parking signage in the budget should help with visitor management, but that the $50,000 Cold Spring receives in Putnam County sales tax sharing can only be used for infrastructure needs and "doesn't really touch" visitor-related costs.

"The costs of tourism get pushed down to the local level and that means we don't have as much [funding] available for use in other areas of village life," Foley said. "It's very challenging to balance tourism with quality of life and a locally relevant economy."

A public hearing on the tentative budget is scheduled for Wednesday (April 8). The proposed spending plan is available at coldspringny.gov and is subject to change until the end of April, when the final budget will be adopted. The new fiscal year begins June 1.

The Soul Jam brings the party to Beacon

One couple boogied in front of an $80,000 painting. Young people sang along to old songs. And last month, after bandleader Jake Vogel shouted, "This is not standing-room-only, this is dancing-room-only!" just before The Soul Jam's final song, 50 people began the Electric Slide inside the art gallery at Savage Wonder in Beacon.

These folks know how to party — the tune lasted for 10 minutes. Along with the band, about 80 people ranging from teens to seniors showed up on a rainy, blustery Thursday evening.

"All of the musicians and many of our followers are Jehovah's Witnesses," says Vogel, maestro and guitarist. "We're allowed to drink in moderation, dance and have fun, but we're discouraged from dating outside the faith."

Based in Newburgh, The Soul Jam plays hits from yesteryear, along with some Vogel originals. He also leads the group Awkward Silence, which will play at Savage Wonder later this month.

The latter iteration of musicians leans into original compositions and a wider array of cover material, from jazz to punk rock, he says. Members and instrumentation are subject to change. Lots of musicians rotate in and out, but the constants are Vogel and Rodney Williams on trumpet.

At one point during The Soul Jam show, as Vogel kneeled, Williams and sax player Edwich Pierrelouis pummeled his head with sound. For the duration of the busy bass line in Stevie Wonder's "I Wish," Lovaughn Bryant watched his left hand closely while cycling through the fun, funky part.

Keyboard player Raj Lachtman's vamps beefed up the tone and Don Placentia's drums accentuated the Latin feel of "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" by adding more syncopation and slurping his hi-hat cymbals with gusto.

The group that evening included two vocalists, and when they launched into "Chain of Fools," Jenae Petty owned the tune. When he's not singing, Anthony Lombard served as the hype man, shaking a percussive egg.

At one point, as the horns soloed off each other, Vogel leaned against a pillar and smiled like a baseball manager enjoying a 1-2-3 inning.

When he exhorted the crowd and launched into the final song of the night, "Get Up Off of That Thing," by James Brown, people let the rhythm hit 'em.

As Vogel knelt to play his guitar, which he had placed flat on the floor, he appeared to be praying. It evoked the moment at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival when Jimi Hendrix leaned over, drenched a six-string with lighter fluid and played with matches.

Onstage, Vogel's style is frenetic. One solo screamed like heavy metal, and for 90 minutes, he jumped around a warm room wearing a suit and scarf.

"I've always been energetic playing music," he says. "One of my favorite bands is the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they really bring it live. I tried holding back a little, but I play so much better when I let it loose."

Savage Wonder is located at 141 Main St. in Beacon. Soul Jam will perform at 8:30 p.m. on April 10 and Awkward Silence at 9 p.m. on April 18. Tickets are free at dub.sh/savage-wonder.

District accuses engineer of 'malpractice'

The Garrison school district has sued the firm it hired to design a nearly $3 million heating system that officials describe as so underperforming that children sometimes wear their coats in classrooms.

In 2020, Garrison contracted with Tetra Tech Architects & Engineers to provide design services for $10 million in voter-approved upgrades, the most expensive of which was a $2.7 million heat-pump system to warm and cool the whole building. That system, according to a lawsuit filed March 25 in state court, fails to meet state standards requiring a minimum indoor temperature of 65 degrees from Sept. 15 to May 31 and the provision of outdoor air at all times.

Tetra Tech has not yet responded to the lawsuit in court. The firm did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The Garrison district said staff have had to "dedicate substantial administrative time" to monitoring and manually adjusting settings since the system became operational. On cold days, they have "to choose between maintaining adequate heat for students and staff or introducing the outdoor air necessary to satisfy ventilation requirements," according to the legal filing.

Garrison officials said the pumps also blow cold air during the system's defrost cycle, when heat is temporarily redirected to melt frost from the coils of the outdoor units.

They accuse Tetra Tech, whose long list of school-district clients includes Beacon, of architectural malpractice and professional negligence, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract. Their lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages, "including costs to investigate, monitor, redesign, repair, replace, remediate and correct" the system.

Tetra Tech's "defective HVAC design did not merely create a technical problem," according to Garrison officials. "It left children wearing coats in class and forced the district to divert administrative time and public resources to constant troubleshooting of a system that should have worked properly in the first place."

Garrison officials chose the heat pumps over an alternative: a system in which water heated by the building's boilers would be distributed to the elementary and middle-school classrooms, while the remainder of the middle school, such as the gym and bathrooms, would continue to be heated using oil.

When the board voted on July 1, 2019, for the heat pumps, then-President James Hoch said they offered a "unified" system. Before the vote, Garrett Hamlin, a Tetra Tech vice president, told the board that "we've had a lot of conversations about heating systems, but there are other areas of this project that are really critical," such as bathrooms, the phone system and security upgrades.

"All of those things are really important parts of this project, and I don't want us to lose sight of that," said Hamlin.

Seven years later, the focus is on the heating system. Garrison's lawsuit alleges several problems with its design and installation, beginning with the weather data used in Tetra Tech's calculations. The district says the company relied on reports from LaGuardia Airport "rather than more representative local data," according to court documents.

Tetra Tech is also accused of failing to adequately consider how heat would transfer through the outer shell of its building, which is more than 100 years old, and "eliminated or omitted" Dedicated Outdoor Air System units, which condition outdoor air for indoor ventilation. It also designed a system that is not "adequately sized to temper required volumes of cold outdoor air while maintaining required indoor temperatures," according to the district.

Notified of the problems, Tetra Tech "failed to provide an adequate cure that restored reliable, code-compliant heating and ventilation," according to court documents.

The system is part of a menu of upgrades approved by district voters in September 2019 that included refurbished ceilings, floors, doors and cabinets, bathroom renov...

Grigoroff would be freed instead of facing third trial

A plea deal offered by the Putnam County district attorney on Tuesday (March 31) would free a former Lake Peekskill man twice convicted in the 2008 killing of Philipstown resident John Marcinak.

A state appeals court ruled in December that Anthony Grigoroff deserved a third trial after he had been convicted in 2010 and again in 2017 of shooting Marcinak at his business, Garrison Garage, on Route 9 on Dec. 31, 2008.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys met privately on Tuesday with Judge Joseph Spofford, then returned to the courtroom to announce a deal in which Grigoroff would plead guilty to second-degree attempted burglary rather than be tried for a third time for second-degree murder.

The maximum sentence for the burglary charge is seven years. Grigoroff, who has been imprisoned since 2010, would be sentenced to time served and released, said Bruce Barket, one of his attorneys. He said the defense team would consider the offer while he reviewed evidence recently shared by the DA's office. Spofford scheduled the next hearing for April 21.

The offer came three months after a state appeals court concluded that Judge Edward McLoughlin deprived Grigoroff of a fair trial in 2017, when a jury convicted him of killing Marcinak at a retrial. The only evidence presented by the prosecution was a confession by Grigoroff following what defense attorneys said was a 12-hour interrogation.

The appeals court found that McLoughlin, a Dutchess judge who had been assigned the case, erred by limiting testimony from an expert witness who determined that Grigoroff "is more vulnerable than the average person to falsely confessing."

That expert wanted to cite research from the Innocence Project, which at the time found that 25 percent of people exonerated through DNA evidence had confessed, along with another study by the University of Michigan Law School on the prevalence of false confessions, particularly by people with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses.

But McLoughlin "improperly concluded that those studies were not relevant to the defendant and the interrogation" because the case did not involve DNA and despite Grigoroff having "an IQ lower than 93 percent of individuals in his age group," according to the decision. McLoughlin also allowed testimony from a prosecution witness that research on false confessions was "scant" and that studies of their nexus with "psychological vulnerabilities was a 'primitive subdiscipline.' "

The defense expert testified in a video recording played in court because McLoughlin ordered the trial to begin when the expert could not appear, noted the appeals judges. Because "the sole evidence is the defendant's confession and the crux of the defense was the testimony of an expert in false confessions … the errors had the cumulative effect of depriving the defendant of his due process right to a fair trial," according to the decision.

After the December ruling, the Putnam DA's office refiled second-degree murder and burglary charges against Grigoroff, who has been held at the county jail since being transferred from Sing Sing. Danielle Muscatello, another of Grigoroff's attorneys, said in January that two families have been victimized — the Marcinaks, "because I don't think they ever got the justice they deserved," and the Grigoroffs.

At the 2010 trial, a jury found Grigoroff guilty of second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and attempted burglary. Judge James Reitz sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.

In his statement to investigators, Grigoroff, then 19, said he drove to the Garrison Garage with his identical twin, Erick, and a friend, Byron Mountain, on Dec. 31, 2008, because the three men planned to rob the business to get a few hundred dollars to party in Manhattan on New Year's Eve. He insisted that it was Mountain who shot Marcinak while he waited in the car, and Erick served as a lookout. Grigoroff also alleges that inves...

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for its newsletter here.

Last week, the state Legislature officially backed Gov. Kathy Hochul's plan to offer every 4-year-old in New York a free pre-K seat within the next three years.

New York's public pre-K program served three-quarters of eligible 4-year-olds last school year. But thousands of children statewide still lack access because their districts have limited seats or don't offer it at all, New York Focus reported earlier this month. Last year, 49 districts opted out, many citing insufficient state funding, limited space, or staffing issues.

The Beacon, Haldane and Garrison school districts each offer universal pre-K. Beacon began its program in 2023; it has 120 spots for 2026-27 (registration opened March 18; students must be 4 years old by Dec. 1). Haldane began its program in 2025-26 and has 18 spots, while Garrison launched its program in 2022-23 and has 18 spots. Haldane said it had three or four students on the waiting list last year but all made it into the class; Garrison said it has received 22 applications for 2026-27 and will hold a lottery.

Hochul's proposal would nearly double the state's minimum reimbursement to $10,000 per student, but some district superintendents contend that amount would still not be enough to provide a seat to all applicants by the 2028–29 school year.

At the heart of the tension is how the cost of the program should be divided between the state and school districts. State aid rarely covers the full cost of pre-K, leaving districts to make up the difference from their local — and, often, already strained — budgets. Some superintendents argue that the state should shoulder a larger share of the expense. Other officials think that the model, which is similar to how public K-12 is funded, should suffice.

How does the program's funding model actually work, and can the governor's plan fix it? Here's what you need to know.

How is universal pre-K funded, and what does it cover?

Universal pre-K draws from multiple funding streams.

To start, school districts receive state funding per child enrolled in public pre-K. The current rate is set at either half of what a district receives in Foundation Aid — the state's complex funding formula for K-12 education — or $5,400, whichever is higher.

When a district joins the program, the state sets a target enrollment number, typically around 85 percent of the district's kindergarten enrollment, which it uses to calculate the maximum funding the district can receive each year.

On top of that, many districts receive competitive grants that can boost per-pupil funding up to $10,000. A small grant program offers funding for a limited number of low-income preschoolers, and state funding is available for children with disabilities.

The 2025 state budget included four separate funding streams for pre-K totaling $1.2 billion, according to a NYSED analysis that recommended consolidating the program funding to achieve universality.

"It's an incredibly complicated set of funding streams," said Andrew Perry, director of fiscal research at the Fiscal Policy Institute.

That money is primarily for 4-year-olds, but some districts get a separate allotment for 3-year-olds. They can use the money for a wide range of expenses, from employee salaries to classroom supplies to transportation services.

Some school leaders and advocates say state funding covers only a fraction of the true cost of educating a 4-year-old. The National Institute for Early Education Research, for example, estimated that in 2023, the cost of high-quality full-day preschool in New York state exceeded $19,000 per child.

How does the funding model differ from other public school funding?

As with Foundation Aid, school districts often have to contribute local funds to operate a pre-K program. According to state Sen. James Skoufis, who has called for a pre-K mandate to kick in soo...

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for its newsletter here.

The New York State Assembly wants to freeze your energy bills, the Senate wants to stop police from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the governor wants to slash auto insurance premiums. Albany's leaders will hash out these and hundreds of other policies as they craft the state budget and decide how to spend $260 billion — and then some, if the legislature gets its way. The deadline is officially Wednesday (April 1), although the work is never completed by then.

Two weeks ago, the two legislative chambers released their counters to Gov. Kathy Hochul's executive budget. The biggest disagreement is on taxes; the Legislature is once again proposing hikes on wealthy people and corporations to fund expanded social programs. This year, they have a notable ally in their corner: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has aggressively pushed for more state revenue to help close the city's budget gap. All eyes are on Hochul, who has so far resisted the idea.

But there's much more to the battle than the headline numbers. Each of the three proposals are thousands of pages long, and they don't make for light reading. We've been working around the clock to break them down for you.

In the chart below, you can see where each party stands on the highest-profile issues. Below that, you can find written descriptions using the drop-down menus. Happy budget season!

FISCAL POLICY

Where They're Split

Tax the rich? Hochul and the Legislature are butting heads on whether to raise taxes in order to fund more programs and help cities plug their budget holes. The Senate and Assembly each proposed raising taxes statewide on wealthy individuals and corporations, as they have for the last few budget cycles.

The Senate proposed increases of 0.5 points on individuals earning above $5 million and 1.75 points on corporations earning at least $5 million. The Assembly backed a 0.2-point increase on individuals above $5 million, bigger hikes on the highest income brackets, and a 2-point hike on corporations with at least $10 million in income. The Assembly also proposed cutting income taxes for filers earning below $323,000.

Hochul did not propose new tax increases or income tax cuts, although she did propose extending a temporary increase on corporations through 2029.

Where They're Close

Total spending: The total sizes of the three budget proposals differ by about $10 billion, less than a 3 percent difference in a budget over $260 billion.

Where They Agree

Rainy day fund: The Senate, the Assembly and Hochul all want to keep $14.6 billion in the state's cash reserve. Building it to that level has been a significant accomplishment of Hochul's first term.

SOCIAL SERVICES

Where They're Split

Medicaid: Hochul proposed $49.1 billion in state spending on Medicaid. The Senate proposal added $660 million in state-share Medicaid spending beyond Hochul's proposal, according to a spokesperson for the Senate Finance Committee chair. The Assembly's total proposed Medicaid spending was not immediately clear.

Hochul proposed $1.56 billion in increased funding for hospitals, nursing homes and health clinics collectively. The Assembly proposed $862 million more than Hochul for the same providers.

The governor's executive budget did not include a clear path forward for those who will be disenrolled this summer from the state's Essential Plan — and neither do the Senate's nor the Assembly's proposals. The Senate proposed a new commission to make a plan by July outlining paths forward for the state's health care system after cuts. The Assembly proposed a contingency fund to offset costs for a subset of Essential Plan enrollees that it is legally required to cover. That fund would not support the 470,000 individuals that the Fiscal Policy Institute estimates are set to lose coverage.

Human services raises: T...

Rallies held in Beacon and across U.S.

In "No Kings" rallies in Beacon, New York City and around the country on Saturday (March 28), crowds protested the war in Iran and President Donald Trump's policies and actions.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Bruce Springsteen and other speakers praised residents for taking to the streets in opposition to the tactics of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement. Springsteen performed "Streets of Minneapolis," a song he wrote in response to the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents.

Before Springsteen took the stage, organizers played a video in which actor Robert DeNiro said he wakes up every morning depressed because of Trump but was happier Saturday because millions of people were protesting. The bill also included singer Joan Baez, actor Jane Fonda, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and a long line of activists, labor leaders and elected officials.

Organizers estimated that the first round of No Kings rallies, in June, drew more than 5 million people nationwide, followed by 7 million in October. This week they said they expected 9 million participants at more than 3,100 events.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson characterized the rallies as the product of "leftist funding networks" with little real public support. The "only people who care about these Trump derangement therapy sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them," she said in a statement.

The National Republican Congressional Committee was also sharply critical. "These Hate America Rallies are where the far-left's most violent, deranged fantasies get a microphone," NRCC spokesperson Maureen O'Toole said.

Beacon photos by Gary Ditlow

Organizers said two-thirds of registrations for the rallies came from outside of major urban centers, including in communities in conservative-leaning states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota and Louisiana, as well in electorally competitive suburbs in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.

Beacon photos by William Flamholtz

Demonstrations were also planned in more than a dozen other countries, according to Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a group spearheading the events. In countries with constitutional monarchies, people call the protests "No Tyrants," he said.

Todd Richmond and John Hanna contributed reporting.

Seven years ago, New York enacted a law to eliminate fossil fuels as a source of electricity by 2040. The grand plan has not been going well.

When Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican whose district includes Philipstown, stood before the partially deconstructed Indian Point nuclear plant earlier this month, he pointed to its 2021 closing as an example of Democrats creating "an absolute disaster for New York's energy grid."

As part of a long-shot bid to get the reactors restarted, he cited the state ban on fracking gas, the blocking of pipelines, the denial of permits to the Danskammer methane power plant near Newburgh, electric vehicle mandates, laws to electrify construction and, most of all, "the passage of the disastrous CLCPA."

The state enacted the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act in 2019. Its goal was to transition over several decades to renewable energy sources that don't contribute to global warming. This week, the United Nations issued the latest in a series of increasingly alarmed announcements. "Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits," said U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, urging the world to transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. "Every key climate indicator is flashing red."

The climate law has three primary targets: (1) 70 percent of electricity produced by renewable sources by 2030; (2) complete zero-emissions electricity by 2040, and (3) 85 percent less greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 than were produced in 1990.

Lawler and other critics argue that the law is unrealistic and costly. "Hudson Valley families are being suffocated with rising energy costs because of Gov. [Kathy] Hochul's failed and disastrous energy policies," he said at Indian Point. "It is time to reverse course."

Those who support the climate law are also frustrated with it, for different reasons. "These claims that we're seeing that the climate law is the cause of the energy emergency and the cost-of-living emergency and affordability crisis are pretty bunk, because the law isn't being implemented," said Kobi Naseck, the director of programs for the coalition group New York Renews.

In October, a state judge in Ulster County agreed, siding with a contingent of environmental groups that sued the state for failing to follow the law. Last summer, a state analysis found that New York is three years behind its 2030 goal and six years behind its 2040 goal. Smaller, less-publicized climate targets in the law have fared no better. An online tracking tool created by Columbia University lists actions that have missed deadlines, from the collection and disposal of mercury thermostats to the capture of methane from landfills to energy audits of larger buildings.

The lawsuit argues that the state is paying lip service to its emission-reduction goals because it has not established any way to enforce industry violations. New York did announce a "cap-and-invest" program in which large-scale polluters would be fined for emissions over a certain threshold; the fines would be invested in renewable energy, upgrading the electrical grid, creating jobs and consumer rebates, among other benefits.

But after two years gathering comments and creating outlines, Hochul in January 2025 "made it clear that those regulations were not going to be coming anytime soon, and there was no Plan B for what the state was going to do to implement the climate law," said Rachel Spector, a lawyer with Earthjustice, the lead organization in the lawsuit against the state.

The judge in Ulster County gave the state two options: Issue the overdue regulations or change the law.

Last week, Hochul said she would work with the state Legislature to change the law. "We need more time," she said, proposing that the state promise to adopt regulations by the end of 2030 and change the 2040 and 2050 target dates.

Hochul also wants to change the way the state calculates emissions, particularly methane and biofuels, using a more forgiving formula. She is pus...

Former Cold Spring resident pleads guilty to minor charge

The proverb that begins, "The wheels of justice turn slowly…" certainly could be applied to the prosecution of former Cold Spring resident Alexander Welsh, who was arrested in May 2023 but didn't see his case resolved for nearly three years.

Just after noon on Friday, May 19, 2023, a Putnam County Sheriff's deputy stationed at the Haldane school reported hearing what sounded like gunshots. The sounds startled elementary students and staff on the playground and prompted a law enforcement response that included additional deputies and officers from the state police and the Cold Spring, Kent and Metro-North departments. School administrators locked down the campus for about 90 minutes.

After a resident told police they had seen smoke outside a nearby home, police found what appeared to be recently exploded fireworks in the yard at 34 Mountain Ave. When the occupants were uncooperative, officers returned at 7 p.m. with a search warrant.

Welsh, then 28, was arrested and charged with felony criminal possession of cannabis, misdemeanor criminal possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor criminal nuisance. He was given a ticket to appear in the Town of Philipstown Court; the case was later transferred to the Cold Spring Justice Court.

Two weeks later, on June 6, a Poughkeepsie-based attorney, Kevin MacKay, notified the court that he represented Welsh. The clerk sent MacKay the case documents, and a hearing was scheduled for June 14.

What followed was 33 months of delays, frequently due to adjournments requested by MacKay, who said he had conflicting court dates in Dutchess County. Further delays were caused by procedural details and, most recently, the retirements last year of Justice Thomas Costello and clerk Cathy Costello.

Welsh, who last appeared in person in court in May 2023, pleaded not guilty to all three charges. On March 11, MacKay submitted a signed affidavit in which Welsh pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Justice Luke Hilpert fined Welsh $250 plus a $125 fee. Under state law, the sentence could have included up to 15 days in jail.

MacKay did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Putnam County district attorney, Robert Tendy, said he offered a plea deal because Welsh has stayed out of trouble since his arrest and that MacKay had kept his office apprised of his client's progress.

"Mr. Welsh is now living in California and is leading a law-abiding life," Tendy said. "Given that he has no prior convictions, and is continuing to do well, I thought it appropriate to permit him to plead to a violation instead of holding him to a criminal conviction."

Tendy said it appeared Welsh didn't intend to cause chaos when he lit fireworks near the school, "though it was certainly thoughtless and potentially dangerous."

Haldane, Beacon have vibrant publications

Student newspapers, like their professional counterparts, are disappearing nationwide. Only 45 percent of high schools have newspapers, down from 64 percent in 2011, according to the Center for Scholastic Journalism at Kent State University. Peter Bobkowski, a professor there, said the decline follows the decline of journalism classes and local journalism in general.

But you wouldn't know it in the Highlands, where journalism clubs at Haldane and Beacon high schools have revived their student newspapers.

Two years ago, Lincoln Wayland started a journalism club to publish The Haldane Outlook, a quarterly that has had more than 70 contributors. In addition to posting stories at haldaneoutlook.com, students print 500 copies for distribution on campus and in the community. "More people will read it if it's on paper," said Wayland, a junior who is editor-in-chief.

Students at Beacon High School hadn't published a newspaper for 30 years when, in 2022, the district started a journalism class and a journalism club, which launched Breaking Beacon, said Kelly Hamburger, its faculty advisor. The club publishes the paper monthly; The Highlands Current publishes excerpts several times each year (see dub.sh/breaking-beacon).

At Haldane, The Outlook replaced The Blue Print, which had been produced as part of a journalism or English class, with some stories reprinted in The Current. The journalism class still produces articles but focuses on producing a podcast, said Ashley Linda, its instructor.

Wayland said he began exploring an independent student newspaper because he wanted a more robust journalism experience. "I was writing all these articles that no one was going to see because there wasn't really any distribution process," he said.

His father, John, who helped start a student newspaper at his Nantucket high school, The Veritas, and his mother, Jennifer Zwarich, agreed to be advisors. With Keira Shanahan, who would be the first editor-in-chief, they requested a grant from the Haldane School Foundation. The paper also receives some funding from the district and has expanded coverage to Haldane Middle School.

School newspapers are "a way for students to build self-confidence and find a purpose in school," said Lara Bergen, of Press Pass NYC, which promotes student journalism in New York City, where only 27 percent of schools have newspapers.

Bergen said a key to a successful school newspaper is avoiding "prior review," in which administrators approve stories, a practice allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988 in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. Unlike 18 states, New York hasn't enacted legislation prohibiting administration censorship.

"The best journalism happens in the freest student newsrooms and brings pride to administrators," said Bergen.

Student Journalists at The Current

Six years ago, with support from readers and donors such as the Haldane School Foundation and the McManus Foundation, The Current launched a Student Journalists Program, which paid Beacon and Philipstown students to report for the paper, with guidance from editors.

Last year, although 10 students signed up to participate, engagement dwindled. The students might not admit it, but we know they prefer to write for their own publications, neither of which existed in 2020.

We continue to support student journalists by reprinting stories from Breaking Beacon, paying for occasional assignments, providing office space, holding our weekly editorial meeting at Beacon High School once a year, covering the fees for scholastic journalism conferences and distributing The Outlook.

At the college level, each summer we hire a journalism student from Marist University as a reporter and each fall partner with a documentary film class. The contributions of students to the paper have been invaluable.

Chip Rowe, Editor

The Outlook's charter says it is "committed to remaining an independent voice. We reject prior review by school officials or admin...