The committee advising Ventura’s school board on which schools it should close has wrapped up its work with a recommended list of closures topped by Lemon Grove School and Mound Elementary School.
The volunteer group of 20 parents, students, teachers and other community members held its last meeting on Oct. 8 at Portola Elementary. The committee will now submit a report of its recommendations to the Ventura Unified School District Board of Trustees, which will make the final decision on school closures.
The board will hold a “town hall” meeting on Oct. 15 devoted entirely to the school closure issue.
Ventura Unified’s board decided last year that the district needed to close one or more of its 26 schools, due to years of declining enrollment and
looming budget deficits. District enrollment is down almost 20% over the past decade, according to statistics kept by the California Department of Education. Some of the district’s schools have about half as many students as they did 10 years ago.
The advisory committeehas been meeting since March to discuss which schools would be the best choices to close, based on their locations, enrollment trends, budgets, test scores, demographics and other factors. By the end of its final meeting on Oct. 8, it had arrived at an ordered list of six elementary schools for potential closure, out of the district’s 17 elementary schools.
With the committee's top choices for closure at the top of the list, they are:
- Lemon Grove School
- Mound Elementary School
- Poinsettia Elementary School
- E.P. Foster Elementary School
- Sheridan Way Elementary School
- Junipero Serra Elementary School
Because E.P. Foster and Sheridan Way are in the same neighborhood on the city's west side, the committee is recommending that if either of them is closed, the other one should remain open.
Anne Barr, a parent at Lemon Grove, spoke before the committee on Oct. 8 and urged the members to change their minds about the school. It’s one of only a few schools in Ventura that go from kindergarten through eighth grade, and Barr said that experience is much better for middle school students than attending a large school that only has grades six through eight.
“These kids are leaving this middle school program as leaders,” she said. “This K-8 model absolutely works.”
Mound School is high on the list for closure in part because it is not a neighborhood school. Instead, it draws students from all over the district, so closing it would not deprive a neighborhood of its local school.
Michelle Bowie, a parent at Mound, said the school still has a strong sense of community, and draws students from all over because it is an excellent school.
“It is clear that families are willing to give up neighborhood convenience and deal with transportation because Mound offers an educational experience that they value,” she said.
Balboa, Anacapa top middle school list
The committee did not recommend closing any of Ventura’s four middle schools, but if the board does want to close a middle school, the committee’s top choice was a tie between Anacapa Middle School and Balboa Middle School. De Anza Academy of Technology and the Arts, or DATA, was the committee’s third choice among middle schools and Cabrillo Middle School was fourth.
Committee members said they picked Anacapa and Balboa as the best choices to close because their enrollment has been declining and because both schools are in poor physical condition and need expensive repairs and maintenance.
The district’s board declared at the start of the process that it would not consider closing either of its two large high schools, Ventura and Buena high schools. It asked the committee to evaluate the other three high schools for potential closure: Foothill Technology High School, a magnet school; Pacific High School, the district’s continuation school; and El Camino High School, the district’s independent study program.
During its Oct. 8 meeting, the committee decided it would not recommend closing any of those schools, but it did recommend moving Pacific or El Camino to other locations if the district could find appropriate sites that would cost less.
Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism. The foundation plays no role in story selection. The Star retains full editorial control.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Ventura committee ranks these elementary schools for closure
