At the Mount Sinai Union Free School District Board of Education meeting on Oct. 22, district staff provided an update on the district’s legal challenge to a New York State Education Department regionalization regulation.

Mr. Stout said the district and about 20 others filed a legal action after the state asked districts to provide extensive information—he estimated about 40 pages—on demographics, test scores, programs and other district data as part of a regionalization process. The state’s regionalization plan also gave authority to the BOCES regional superintendent to collect information and develop plans for participating districts, Stout said.

Stout told the board that a court recently issued a two-part ruling. The court dismissed the petition to stop regionalization on the ground that the plaintiffs had not shown concrete damages, because the state had not yet implemented a regional plan. But, Stout said, the court also stated that districts that had formally opted out of the state information request were effectively opted out of regionalization and could not be forced to participate in any regionalization plan.

“That’s a win for us,” Stout said, referring to the district’s decision to opt out. He said 21 districts were part of the lawsuit but that he did not know how many other districts had opted out outside of the litigation.

Stout emphasized that the ruling leaves uncertainty about the future of the state’s regionalization effort. He said the state might revise the approach, that the program could be altered to affect different parts of the state differently, or that it could be abandoned if enough districts opt out. He advised the board that the current adjudication leaves the district’s opt-out intact but does not fully resolve long-term questions.

No formal action was taken by the board on the matter during the meeting; the item was provided as an informational update.