Schools

Top Stories of 2011: And Then There Were 10

The Fountain Valley School District, facing a historic budget shortfall, decides to close Fred Moiola K-8 School.

It started in March with a seemingly innocuous and speculative headline: School Closures in FVSD? Facing a budget shortfall of $2 million and having made every other conceivable cut it could short of teacher layoffs, the Fountain Valley School District embarked on the unenviable task of deciding whether it should close one of its 11 campuses.

By April, the district had formed a 19-member exploratory committee comprised of teachers, administrators, parents and influential locals, and was already staving off rumors that a particular school was in the closure crosshairs. As the committee began to meet, studying school site efficiency and deciding exactly which information was most relevant, parents representing Moiola K-8 school began attending the meetings in increasing numbers.

By May, the committee had voted that one of the 11 campuses should indeed be closed, but had yet to decide which. At the time, Assistant Superintendent Steve McMahon said the initial decision to close a school would be the comittee's toughest task, but deciding which proved to be much harder.

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As the committee began to establish criteria for measuring the district's individual campuses against one another, it became clear to Moiola parents that their earlier concerns were justified. Moiola was the district's only K-8 campus, something they considered a plus, but which could also be used to single the school out.

By July, the committee had decided which factors would be used in the final decision, which included projected declining enrollment, proximity to another district campus, current enrollment, and campus size. By August, its members had ranked the district's 11 schools using the established criteria, and Moiola had come out as the clear front-runner for closure.

Find out what's happening in Fountain Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

With the Closure Committee's recommendation in hand, it was still up to the school board to make the final decision, and in the months to come, the Moiola community did everything it could to make its case. A to hear their concerns, and alternatives to school closure.

Superintendent Mark Ecker addressed parents' concerns and responded to their ideas in an exclusive with Patch, but in the end, in Ecker's own words, the board decided that the district was "simply operating too many schools," making the to close Moiola.


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