A parent asked the Valley Central school board Sept. 14 to conduct a “thorough and transparent” investigation into how the district handles students who struggle academically, behaviorally, socially or emotionally, citing the experiences of her son and his late friend, a former Valley Central student.
Jenny Koehler told the board she has formally requested an investigation into concerns involving her son, Ethan, and Ethan’s friend Jacob Freytes, both former Valley Central students. Koehler said the concerns include the treatment of struggling students, exclusion from instruction, public embarrassment, supervision, and the implementation and follow-up of Ethan’s Section 504 plan.
Koehler said she attempted to raise the same concerns at the board’s previous meeting but was told board policy prohibited identifying current students during public comment. She said the policy did not apply because neither Ethan nor Freytes was a current student, and that she emailed her full statement to the board afterward but received no response.
Board President Jane Samuelson told Koehler she had not received the email and apologized, asking her to resend it.
Koehler said she and Ethan recently published an essay about Freytes titled “Look Closely: The Boy Beneath the Struggle” in the Wallkill Valley Times. She said she is not asking the board to draw conclusions before the investigation is complete, but asked members to consider whether interventions for struggling students are documented, monitored and adjusted, whether families are included, and whether disabilities and neurodivergence are understood by staff.
“I cannot change what Ethan experienced here, and nothing any of us can do can change what happened to Jacob, but we can decide that their experiences will matter,” Koehler said. “I am asking this board to acknowledge the concerns I’ve brought forward, allow the investigation to be thorough and transparent, and then use what is learned to make this district better for the children who come next. Because Look Closely should not simply be the title of an essay, it should be what we do when a child is struggling. Please look closely for Ethan, for Jacob, and for the children who still need us to see them.”
Capital projects
In a separate presentation, the district’s construction team, led by Bill Devine of the Palombo Group, gave the board a summer construction update covering work completed under the district’s 2023, 2024 and 2025 capital bond projects.
Devine said crews completed a full renovation of the boiler room at Montgomery Elementary School, replacing boilers, hot-water heaters, piping and valves after finding leaks in old gas-valve packing. He said the building’s steam system was also converted to hot water, with new copper piping installed throughout, and that about a dozen unit ventilators at the school were updated.
At the middle school, three technology rooms were gutted and rebuilt with six new electrical panels, new lighting, air conditioning, and new flooring with in-floor outlets and data and power connections at student workstations. Devine said crews also encountered unexpected underground plumbing work while renovating the school’s bathrooms, and that the cafeteria received new air conditioning, ceilings and lighting.
Other work completed this summer or in recent months, Devine said, includes:
• A new slate roof, pool heaters and pool filtration system at the middle school.
• Districtwide door replacement.
• More than 30,000 square feet of new flooring at East Coldenham Elementary School, including removal of asbestos-containing material, completed four weeks ahead of schedule.
• A new gym floor at Montgomery Elementary.
•New dust-collection equipment for the middle school technology rooms.
Devine said new windows are planned for the middle school, Montgomery Elementary and Maybrook Elementary, with materials expected to arrive at the end of September. Work will be staged from a fenced laydown area built at Montgomery Elementary and completed on a night-shift schedule, he said.