Public Invited to Comment on Proposed Moiola Closure

The Fountain Valley School District Board of Trustees will hold a public hearing Tuesday night pertaining to the proposed closure of Moiola School, the only K-8 school in the district.

“Over the last three to four years we had to cut over seven million in our budget,” Superintendent Marc Ecker said at the .  “Closing schools is always a difficult thing to do”.

The distirct's School Boundaries and Closure Committee has spent most of the past year deciding whether closing one of the district's campuses would be a potential response to a $2 million budget deficit. The committee created a set of and then applied those criteria to each school in the district. The criteria included:

• Potential to lose students to neighboring districts if the school closed
• Estimated decline in enrollment
• Current enrollment
• Size of campus
• Impact by previous school closures

Moiola scored 238 points out of a maximum 288, thereby making it the committee’s suggested school for potential closure.

Concerned parents and students have publicly commented their objections to Moiola’s closing with emotional pleas, proposed alternatives and allegations of that the committee did not follow proper protocol for closing schools in California.

Tuesday night's meeting will start at 7 p.m., and will be held in the board room of the district offices.