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Reading, Writing And Renovations

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Half of Morse School is complete, welcoming 1st and 2nd graders back

October 28, 2025

By Elizabeth Tucker–

As students settle into the school year and their teachers are hard at work, administrators in some of the rivertowns districts are busy supervising major upgrades of the facilities where the teaching and learning take place.

In Hastings, a $38, 475,000 bond project was approved in July. The focus of the project will be enlargement of Farragut Middle School, designed by the architect LAN associates in partnership with PDBW, with a new cafeteria in the courtyard and conversion of the existing cafeteria into classrooms. Hastings will also get two new artificial turf fields at the Burke Estate and infrastructure upgrades throughout the district.

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Hastings is simultaneously renovating the Middle School’s Farragut Wing, which flooded in December 2024 when a sprinkler supply line ruptured, causing extensive damage. Last spring, classes were relocated to empty rooms in the school while the flooded wing was demolished. The initial phase of construction took place over the summer with the second phase now underway. The new Farragut Wing will be ready for use by January. This aspect of the middle school renovations has been funded largely by insurance.

In Sleepy Hollow, an $87 million capital bond was approved in December 2023 with the district contributing an additional $6 million in savings. The architecture firm MEMASI, led by Tina Mesiti-Ceas, is overseeing a redesign of the Morse School (grades 1-2) and Washington Irving School (grades 3-5), each of which will get a four-story addition. In both cases, the added space will be used to enlarge existing classrooms. The W.I. athletic field is also being renovated, and at the Middle and High School athletic field, stadium lights have been installed, allowing night games for the first time in the school’s history.

In order to seal off Morse’s first grade wing for reconstruction, this year’s first graders have been sent to the Tappan Hill School, which had historically served as a neighborhood elementary school and which the district had more recently leased to BOCES. The cohort will stay at Tappan Hill next year while the second-grade wing at Morse is renovated. In subsequent years, The Tappan Hill building will house the kindergarten while the present kindergarten, John Paulding School, will be entirely devoted to Pre-K. Renovations of Tappan Hill were completed over the summer.

In recent weeks, while Morse second graders have continued their school routine, a crew of more than fifteen workers from multiple contractors have been installing framing, sheetrock, and ceiling supports. Crews are preparing to pour the concrete slab for the new courtyard, a transformative feature for the utilitarian urban schoolyard. In response to parents’ concerns, air quality was tested at Morse on September 22 and found to be normal.

The work at W. I. for the time being is focused on the athletic field, where a new stormwater drainage system is being installed, new artificial turf laid, and finally, new bleachers constructed. Construction on the school building is slated to start in June 2026.

In Dobbs Ferry, a $ 19.7 million bond project approved in 2019 reached completion in September. The project included upgrades to the Springhurst elementary school, security vestibules at the Middle and High Schools, a science room at the High School, and a special classroom at the Middle School.