Schools
School Closure Committee Ranks Schools For Potential Closure
Based on the established criteria, Moiola was at the top of the list.
In an attempt to save the district much-needed money and after voting to establish the final criteria by which to evaluate each school in its meeting tonight, the Fountain Valley School District's School Boundaries and Closure Committee discussed the final points on its decided weights, and tallied points to generate a recommendation for school closure.
At its last meeting on June 7, the committee established a pool of potential factors that could be used to evaluate each school and then narrowed the pool down even further since that decision to tonight's final weight criteria:
- Potential to lose students to neighboring districts if school is closed
- Projected declining enrollment
- Current enrollment
- Intra-district transfer percentage
- Proximity to closest school
- Size of campus
- Students/neighborhoods impacted by previous school closures
- Proximity to major intersection/freeway
The total points per section were calculated based on set weights and the school with the most points would be the first considered in the closure process as follows:
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Moiola - 238
Oka - 197
Gisler - 174
Plavan - 173
Courreges - 143
Newland - 128
Tamura - 127
Cox - 114
Assistant Superintendent Stephen McMahon made mention that "there were many steps that led to this point and that each point was discussed in meetings that began back in March so as to be as fair as possible in the proceedings." McMahon plans to send the findings to the assembled committee for final comments in a first draft, then based on comments will send the final or second draft to the Board. If needed, another meeting is on the calendar for August 30th.
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The 20-member committee will now report its recommendation to the Board of Trustees, which will then make the ultimate decision on whether a school should be closed and, if so, which campus would be eliminated.
Once a decision has been reached, the school and its attendees will be contacted, giving adjustment time. The estimation for the communication to be sent out will be before Christmas at its earliest but most optimistically notice will be given shortly thereafter, in the January or February time frame.
