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Schools

Moiola Parents Upset Over Priority Given to Outer-District Students

During Thursday's meeting, several parents voiced their displeasure over the school board's decision to allow existing inter-district transfer students to remain at their school rather than giving city residents the first choice of schools.

Two nights after the Fountain Valley School District's Board of Trustees voted 3-2 to approve new district boundary lines that will keep all the district's elementary students together as they move on to middle school, the district held a meeting to address parents' concerns about the transition and to answer questions.

But while the turnout Thursday was light—about 25 parents—the few who spoke out clearly were upset over the board’s decision that outer-district families who already are attending a school in the Fountain Valley district would receive priority over local residents to attend the school they prefer, including those from Fred Moiola K-8 school, which will close at the end of this school year.

Debbie Whitaker, who has two children attending Moiola, said that many parents at her school have indicated that they want to attend Courreges Elementary School because the school has GATE teaching and the test scores are higher than other schools in the district. And for every inter-district student who attends Courreges, that is one less student from Moiola or another district school who can go there.

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“[The board] says we’re their first priority but we’re not,” Whitaker said. “They’re saying that if you already have an outer district transfer, you’re guaranteed to stay at that school. So we’re not the first priority. That’s my concern. That’s why I’m angry.”

Steve McMahon, assistant superintendent for business, disputed Whitaker’s claim that only Courreges has GATE teaching; he maintained that every school has a GATE program. He added that once parents learn more about other schools in the surrounding neighborhoods, they will support the board’s action.

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“Some people have their mind made up before they hear the facts and you can’t change their mind,” McMahon said. “We have the goal of trying to accommodate everybody in the district, and I think we’ve done that. But if we didn’t have outer-district students, we’d have to close a lot more schools.”

The district is planning to send letters to every parent whose child attends school in Fountain Valley, notifying them of the change in boundaries and what school their children have been assigned to. Those should be mailed by Feb. 15, McMahon said. If that school is the one they currently attend, no further action is needed.

However, if the school is different than the one the student currently is attending and parents don’t want to attend that school, they may apply for an intra-district transfer. Intra-district request forms can be found on the district’s web site and must be mailed back between March 1 and April 2. Those outside the district who receive permission to attend the school they now are attending also need not respond.

McMahon said the district is planning visitations at every school during the first two weeks of March, one in the morning and one in the evening, so parents can tour any of the schools before making a decision. The visit will include a presentation by the school’s principal, a tour of the facilities and a question-and-answer session.

In addition, Open House has been moved up to mid-March from April so parents will have plenty of opportunities to decide on their school. Final assignments will be made in April, with staff reassigments to follow during May and movement of staff and school materials in June.

“We think there is going to be some give and take at all the schools,” McMahon said. “There are some who choose not to [be objective], but that’s why we’re having this visitation time so they can actually get out, look at the schools, and make decisions based on that. If they look around, they may be surprised.”

Also attending the informational meeting Thursday was Christopher Johnston, who attended Tuesday’s board meeting and voiced his support for Option 3, which would have kept children from being shuffled across busy intersections. He cited district numbers that showed the need for 98 children to cross the intersection of Brookhurst St. and Adams Ave., as opposed to 346 students under the other three plans.

Johnston said he remained dissatisfied with the board’s support for Option 4 and also the fact that they did not address the problem with parents Thursday. But after the meeting, McMahon promised that the board would investigate the matter.

“We’re going to pursue that and have the city’s traffic folks involved in it,” he said. “We’ll also do some observation ourselves and see how many kids are going to walk to school. We’re going to figure it out.”

Superintendent Mark Ecker believes the committee assigned to redraw the district’s boundary lines did an excellent job and that the vast majority of parents agree with the outcome based on the low turnout Thursday.

“With 6,300 students, these boundary lines affected a lot of people. But when it all came down to the end and the board voted, I think we had four people who spoke out,” Ecker said. “I was surprised by the low turnout tonight. I expected a lot more people. I think it was because of all the pre-work we’ve done.”

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