Parents and district officials gathered at Mills Middle School on Monday night to discuss the potential closure of two elementary schools in Rancho Cordova, and several parents in attendance challenged the district’s reasons for targeting the two schools.
Cordova Lane and Riverview Elementary schools could be closing for the 2010-2011 school year if FCUSD cannot find another way to cut costs. The school district said they have started the current school year with $20 million less than they had in previous years, and they are expecting to need to cut $10 million more for the next school year.
Superintendent Pat Godwin said the school closures will save the district $600,000 for the next school year.
“This has nothing to do with closing the schools for any other reason,” Godwin said to the audience of Monday. “We would like to keep the schools open if the budget would afford us to do that.”
Matt Washburn, the director of facilities for the district, said the district conducted a study that led them to their current proposal.
“We did the most conservative report that we could to make sure we had enough room,” Washburn said. “We came to what we consider a logical decision.”
Parents, however, saw the situation in a different light. Speakers expressed their concern over the district’s conclusion, challenging their enrollment study and their decision to close schools in Rancho Cordova instead of Folsom.
“I understand you guys are doing dollars,” one man said to the FCUSD officials. “It’s not about dollars, it’s about our kids.”
The man also said the closure of two schools in Rancho Cordova was unfair. “The City of Folsom hasn’t had a school close,” he said. “We need to look at them before us — it’s their turn.”
One woman said the money the district would save by closing the schools wouldn’t solve the district’s money crunch. “Three hundred thousand dollars sounds like a drop in the bucket to a $10 million problem,” she said.
The district will be holding another forum about the school closures on Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. at Mills Middle School. The final decision made by district staff will be presented to the board for approval on Nov. 19.
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It will be interesting to see how the FCUSD goes about getting through the hurdles of leasing/using the proposed-to-be-closed Rancho Cordova school sites by the time the 2010 school year starts–and the longer-term ramifications. Already the FCUSD is bypassing a lot of State of California Department of Ed processes/proposed timelines (including community participation and fact gathering, notification, etc.) typically recommended and established for closing California public schools. Just see http://www.cde.ca.gov/LS/fa/sf/schoolclose.asp and get a taste of the laws, rules, and near-endless regulations the FCUSD district is jumping over and skating by to race to some school closings. California Dept. of Ed chiefs, and State Board of Education–not the FCUSD School Board or local school officials–are the real ones who in the end who will be calling the shots. Only years ago the FCUSD was telling State officials they reqired many millions of dollars for costly facility upgrades at Rancho Cordova schools. Now, FCUSD officials publicly state the district has had years of data showing a declining student population in the service area studied for school closings. Dept. of Ed auditors and examiners are guarenteed to have a field day on the FCUSD. You cannot lie and misrepresent to the State Ed officials and get away with it–particularly when it is so many multiple millions of dollars. And the State Board of Ed–the real High and Mighty’s in this game–will not typically reward school districts and officials who they see scammed and squandered–especially with hundreds of public schools up and down the State just barely hanging on–even begging for pennies per student. Would have been easier for the FCUSD to have fleeced School Lunch Program money for funding–a federal offense–than get into this problem now of having to close some uneeded schools. Count on some other educational agency or government entity or other organization–but certainly not the FCUSD–holding title to the closed Rancho school properties in the end after all this dust settles.
It seems Rancho Cordova is ALWAYS I MEAN ALWAYS gets the short end of the stick when it pertains to economic redevelopment and or improvement. Now it seems they want to mess with our schools too?
Maybe we should let them give close the schools and hopefully a Charter school can revive their failed attempts to save our schools.
Take a look at Folsom elementary schools pretty nice compared to our schools.Hmmmm. Interesting
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