The Valley Central School District serves most of the Town of Montgomery in Orange County,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

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, and its three

villages A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban village ...

: Maybrook, Montgomery and

Walden ''Walden'' (; first published as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is an 1854 book by American transcendentalism, transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. T ...

. Students also come from adjacent areas of the towns of Newburgh, Crawford, Wallkill, Hamptonburgh, and New Windsor. A small portion of

Ulster County Ulster County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. It is situated along the Hudson River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 181,851. The county seat is Kingston. The county is named after the Irish province of Ulster. The count ...

's Town of Shawangunk also sends students to this district. There is also another school named Valley Central Public School in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. It operates six schools:

Berea Elementary School

East Coldenham Elementary School

Montgomery Elementary School

Montgomery Elementary School is located on Union Street (

NY 211 New York State Route 211 (NY 211) is a state highway located entirely within Orange County, New York, in the United States. The western terminus is at the intersection with US 209 located in Cuddebackville, and the eastern termin ...

) in the

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

of Montgomery, New York, United States. It educates children from

grades Grade most commonly refers to: * Grading in education, a measurement of a student's performance by educational assessment (e.g. A, pass, etc.) * A designation for students, classes and curricula indicating the number of the year a student has reach ...

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

through 5, most of them residents of the village or nearby sections of the Town of Montgomery. It is a

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brick building dating to the 1920s. When it was built it was the school for all ages in the village, but became an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

when the district was created in the late 1950s. In 2008 it was named a high-performing/gap closing school under the reporting requirements of the

No Child Left Behind Act The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was a 2002 United States Act of Congress promoted by the presidential administration of George W. Bush. It reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and included Title I provisio ...

. Fifth-graders go on to

Valley Central Middle School The Valley Central School District serves most of the Town of Montgomery in Orange County, New York, United States, and its three villages: Maybrook, Montgomery and Walden. Students also come from adjacent areas of the towns of Newburgh, ...

. This school has 1 courtyard and a garden. It has 2 playgrounds 1 for grades K-2 and 1 for 3-5.

Walden Elementary School

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educates children from

through

fifth grade Fifth grade (also 5th Grade or Grade 5) is the fifth or sixth year of formal or compulsory education. In the United States, this is mostly the last grade of primary school, but for some states, it could be the first year of middle school. Primary ...

in the village of the same name, and adjacent areas of the surrounding Town of Montgomery. The building itself was opened in 1926 as the single school building for what was then the Walden School District, educating students of all grade levels from the village, a purpose still evident from the "Walden Grade-High School"

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

on the

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above the four

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column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

s at the main entrance. When Valley Central was created from the merger of Walden and two neighboring districts in the late 1950s, it became just one of three (later five, now four) elementary schools in the district. The school was at the center of a small controversy in 2007. On November 15, an employee at the school received a

bomb threat A bomb threat or bomb scare is a threat, usually verbal or written, to detonate an explosive or incendiary device to cause property damage, death, injuries, and/or incite fear, whether or not such a device actually exists. History Bomb threats ...

in email. School officials locked down the building, letting police enter and confining students to their rooms until an hour after their normal dismissal time. Parents who had objected to the school's decision, and its failure to notify them, kept a quarter of the students home the next day as a protest. School district officials defended their actions as required by the situation.

Valley Central Middle School

Valley Central High School

See

Valley Central High School Valley Central High School is located in Montgomery, New York. It educates students in grades 9- 12 in the Valley Central School District, which includes much of the town of Montgomery, portions of neighboring Wallkill and Newburgh and the th ...

Other facilities

A seventh school, Maybrook Elementary School, closed in June 2013. It is now called the Alternative Learning Center and is used for special learning programs and other small parent enrichment programs. The District Office is located on the same property as Berea Elementary. All business office and Board of Education functions are performed there.

References

External links

* {{Authority control School districts in New York (state) Education in Orange County, New York