Onteora school election results show a deeply divided district

Table of results in the May 15 Onteora school board election, broken down by town. Top vote-getters in each town highlighted in yellow. Data from the Onteora Central School District's website.

If you're a parent in the massive Onteora school district, there's a good chance that how you feel about today's election results reflects where you live.

It's probably not news to anyone who's been following the Onteora reconfiguration battle, and the contentious school board election that followed it, that there are deep divisions along town lines in the district. But the results of Tuesday's school board election, which pitted incumbents Tony Fletcher and Laurie Osmond against new challengers Rebecca Balzac and Cybele Nielsen, show the divide dramatically.

With 907 and 872 votes respectively, Fletcher and Osmond emerged victorious, though not by a landslide. (Balzac got 762 votes; Nielsen got 824.) But on the town level, the numbers paint a different picture. 

Over 75 percent of the Olive vote went to Balzac and Nielsen. Shandaken voted even more decisively for Fletcher and Osmond, who captured over 85 percent of the town's vote.

Sixty-nine percent of the Woodstock vote went to Fletcher and Osmond. Hurley was the most evenly divided town in the district, with just under 60 percent of the town's vote going to Balzac and Nielsen.

All four towns voted to approve the 2012-2013 school budget.

Update, 5/17/2012: We've revised a line in the table that was incorrect: A small portion of Marbletown, not Marlboro, is in the Onteora school district. (Marlboro is a good thirty miles from Olive.) The error came from the school district's own posted results, and was apparently the result of a mistake by the school's webmaster. Apologies for not catching it, and thanks to the sharp-eyed readers who pointed it out.