Appeal of AMY POLACEK, on behalf of her child, from action of the Board of Education of the Chenango Forks Central School District regarding athletics.

Decision No. 18,569

(June 9, 2025)

Ferrara Fiorenza PC, attorneys for respondent, Thomas F. Barrett, Esq., of counsel

ROSA., Commissioner.-Petitioner appeals the determination of the Board of Education of the Chenango Forks Central School District (“respondent”) not to merge with another school district to offer a varsity hockey program.  The appeal must be dismissed.

According to respondent, the 2024-2025 school year represented a “difficult” budget year that required “allocating the [d]istrict’s resources in a fiscally responsible manner.”  In connection therewith, respondent elected not to allocate funds for a hockey program.

In summer 2024, two parents requested that the district combine with another school district to enable their sons to participate on the varsity men’s hockey team operated by the Windsor Central School District (“Windsor”).  The board considered this issue at a public meeting on September 12, 2024.  At the meeting, community members spoke for and against the proposal.  Following these comments, respondent voted unanimously to reject the merger due to “financial ambiguity raising pay to play concerns, potential financial obligation for the [s]chool [d]istrict which was not approved in the 2024-2025 budget, and player equity concerns.”  This appeal ensued.

Petitioner argues that respondent’s denial of the merger was arbitrary or capricious because it will deprive district students of the opportunity to participate in hockey. 

Respondent argues that it reasonably denied petitioner’s requests based upon, among other things, uncertainty as to how the merger would be funded.

In an appeal to the Commissioner, a petitioner has the burden of demonstrating a clear legal right to the relief requested and establishing the facts upon which he or she seeks relief (8 NYCRR 275.10; Appeal of P.C. and K.C., 57 Ed Dept Rep, Decision No. 17,337; Appeal of Aversa, 48 id. 523, Decision No. 15,936; Appeal of Hansen, 48 id. 354, Decision No. 15,884).

The appeal must be dismissed.  Respondent declined to merge with Windsor due, in part, to financial concerns.  When this issue arose during the September 2024 board meeting, supporters of the merger offered “verbal assurances” that private donors, via a booster club, would support the program.  Notes from the meeting indicate that such funding was “not guaranteed for future year[s],” and that “each family” who participated had been “asked to contribute $1000 per player ….”  Based on this information, respondent’s members expressed concern that the board could “be responsible for covering any financial shortfall for … participants … and incur additional transportation costs … which [were] not approved in the 2024-2025 budget.”[1]  While I agree with petitioner that combining sports teams “is often desirable” because it allows more greater student participation, respondent has offered a reasonable explanation for why it declined to do so in this instance (Appeal of L.L., 63 Ed Dept Rep, Decision No. 18,341 [admonishing board of education to “consider each request to combine sports teams” on a case-by-case basis]).  Accordingly, petitioner has failed to meet her burden of proof, and the appeal must be dismissed.

I have considered petitioner’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit.

THE APPEAL IS DISMISSED.

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