RED CREEK - As Red Creek School District Superintendent David Sholes walks through the halls of the high school, he greets nearly every student that passes by their first name and asks a question about one of their afterschool activities.

Such are the advantages of living in a small community: Everyone knows everyone, even though the Red Creek district serves several different municipalities.

For though the building itself, which contains the high school, middle school, elementary school and community recreation center, is in Red Creek and therefore physically in Wayne County, 65 to 70 percent of its approximately 1,100 students are from Cayuga County.

At one time, Fair Haven had its own school district, but the entire village now attends Red Creek schools, which is just six miles away.

More than half of Red Creek's student population is from Sterling.

Those Sterling residents who don't attend Red Creek cross a different border, this time into Oswego County.

Approximately 187 Cayuga County residents are part of the 1,655-student Hannibal Central School District, according to numbers obtained from the Hannibal superintendent's office.

Yet for the most part, Sholes doesn't see his district as being much different from those that serve students from one county. The dynamic is the same within the school, he said, and “it's like the county line is not even there.”

Richard Bills, a Red Creek technology teacher for grades six through 12 for the last 19 years, said that in some ways, his Cayuga County students know the Hannibal area better, while Wayne County students may be more familiar with the Wolcott region.

But “mostly, they see each other as Red Creek kids as opposed to Cayuga County or Wayne County,” said Bills, who himself lives in Fair Haven.

The Red Creek district is 60 square miles total and encompasses Conquest, Victory, Sterling, Butler and Wolcott.

The schools are located just a few hundred yards away from the Wayne and Cayuga county line, creating a unique situation whereby residents across the street from one another pay the same school taxes but different county taxes.

Several board of education members are from Fair Haven or Martville, and at least 25 percent of the faculty and staff live in Cayuga County, added Sholes (who incidentally is part of the Red Creek Rotary that meets not in Red Creek but in Fair Haven).

One advantage of serving students from both counties is that the Red Creek school district receives a piece of Wayne County sales tax revenue; that's not a standard practice, however, with Cayuga County.

On the downside, “if you have to deal with county agencies, you have two agencies instead of one,” Sholes said.

Much of the time, Bills added, the Red Creek district is left out of the news, as neither the Syracuse, Auburn or Rochester papers cover it.

“Once you get north of Cato, it kind of stops,” he said.

Though an invisible boundary such as a county line may often seem unimportant to the students attending either Red Creek or Hannibal schools, there are those quirky moments when living in one county and going to school in another becomes an issue.

All Hannibal students are invited to attend Camp Hollis, a summer camp sponsored by the Oswego City-County Youth Bureau.

Yet those who attend Hannibal schools but don't actually live in the county - meaning those 187 Cayuga County residents in the Hannibal district - must pay extra for not paying Oswego County taxes.

Sterling resident Lisa Shortslef, who works in the Hannibal superintendent's office, has sent her daughter to Camp Hollis in the past.

“She can go, but we have to pay more,” she said.

It costs Shortslef and other Cayuga County residents $190 per week, while Oswego County residents pay $25 to $150, depending on family income.

Staff writer Linda Ober can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or linda.ober@lee.net