At an October 3rd meeting, the Point Loma district school alignment committee declared that they had identified school campuses in Point Loma and Ocean Beach to be either closed or “realigned”.
Here are the District’s preliminary recommendations for the Peninsula:
- Close Cabrillo Elementary;
- Close Barnard Chinese Mandarin Magnet
- Relocate the language program to Dana Middle as a K-8 school;
- Expand Dewey Elementary to include fifth-grade,
- Expand Loma Portal Elementary to include fifth-grade,
- Expand Ocean Beach Elementary to include fifth-grade,
- Expand Silver Gate Elementary to include fifth-grade
- Expand Sunset View elementary school to include fifth-grade;
- Add fifth-grade to Correia Middle School.
In response, Point Loma parents have organized a local committee to come up with finding alternate cost-cutting measures — including school reorganizations.
The proposal to close a total of ten schools District wide and make the other realignment changes could go before the school board in November, after the district discusses the issue with affected communities and considers their input.
The School board trustee for the Peninsula, Scott Barnett, argued that the District needs to disclose all the information about closures and realignments immediately, so the District could get down during the budget discussions.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the closure of schools:
“will help save San Diego Unified millions as it anticipates years of financial problems. A deficit of $57 million is projected for the $1.057 billion operating budget in the 2012-13 year; and a deficit of $65 million is forecast for the following year. The district could face midyear cuts this year of $30 million or more if state revenue falls short of projections.”
The U-T article ends with this ominous note:
The shuffling and merging could leave some campuses open for other use or sale.
That could be disastrous for the District. Years ago, the District wanted to sell off the shuttered Dana Junior High complex for apartments, but the community got involved and stopped it. Today, Dana is a bustling Middle School.
I have to ask however, is this why we elected this School Board – to rule over the shut-down and closure of a good sector of the public school system in San Diego? What does it mean for a liberal grassroots activist like Richard Barrera – the President of the School Board – to be in the chair that shuts ten schools? The City and its communities need something better than this. We need to be offered different alternatives and options than watching as school doors are locked, some perhaps permanently.
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http://danamiddle.blogspot.com
Now it looks as though, they want to completely close Dana Middle School effective July 2013. A friend in the district said that “the district was planning on having the offices at Normal torn down and some developer was going to build on it, the dist. gets the bottom 2-3 floors of whatever for their offices and during the building the different departments get dispersed to the closed schools…”
Last year, my 4th grader has 36 kids in her classroom at OBE. They were shuffling kids around to make room and they were having to make split grades. Meaning, some 4th graders had to spend the majority of their day sitting in the 3rd grade class.
I cannot IMAGINE sending my child to Correia with 3 grades there. We love Dana and I feel horrible for the staff who will be faced with loosing their jobs.
I find it hard to believe that the District could sell off the Normal Street Property without a hearing of some sort… and I do attend school board meetings.
Hey Doug,
Have they approved a remodel?
Best,
AC
nope, not my knowledge.