What You Need to Know About Potential School Closures in Fountain Valley

As school districts continue to tread water statewide, the Fountain Valley School District's school boundary and closure committee has spent the past month outlining its own goals, assessing budgets and analyzing projections. A document obtained by Fountain Valley Patch on Wednesday outlines where the process stands at this point, as well as the wide spectrum of scenarios that could unfold as the committee moves toward a recommendation to the school board.

Why is the district considering closing schools?
The whole idea of closing schools has been suggested over the last several years as away of saving money during these tight budget times. The school board has adopted as one of its goals to make sure schools operate efficiently so as to make maximum use of public funds.

What sort of savings does the district expect to achieve if a school is closed?
Closing one school would save approximately $375,000 to over $400,000. The savings occur by needing less staff i.e. principal, office staff, custodians and having one fewer school to maintain and pay for utilities. There would not necessarily be a savings from having fewer teachers as they would move along with the students to another location. Additionally, the district has the potential to lease out the school that is closed and receive lease income of approximately $200,000.

Has a decision been made about which school to close?
No decision has been made about which school or even if any school will be closed. The School Boundary and Closure Committee has just started meeting and is still gathering information. The process involves several steps:

• Gather information about school district budget, student enrollment, school size and classroom usage. Compare to surrounding districts.
• Weigh pros and cons of closing a school.
• Determine if a school should be closed.
• If the decision is to close a school, the committee will develop criteria by which all schools will be evaluated for closure.
• School closure criteria are applied and school for closure is selected.
• Recommendation report presented to the school board.
• Based on closure recommendation, school attendance boundary lines will be reviewed and recommendations also forwarded to the board. While the Committee can make recommendations to the school board, the board will make the final determination about school closure and/or boundary adjustments.

What is the timeline for the Committee to decide to close a school?
The committee is planning on making its final report to the school board in September. The board will consider the report and hold a public hearing(s) on the matter. If it is determined that closing a school will go forward, that decision is expected to be made in January of 2012, and a transition team will be formed to make sure all the student attendance issues are addressed. The school selected would close on June 30, 2012.

Who is on the committee?
The committee is comprised of a parent representative from each school, two
community members at large and two representatives from each of the employee
groups (teachers, classified and administrative) for a total of 19 members. Several of
the schools have also selected alternate members in the event that their representative is unable to attend the scheduled meeting. A list of the committee members and who they represent is available on the district website.

How where the committee members selected?
School representatives were selected by each principal in collaboration with the school PTA/PTO leadership. The superintendent selected the community-at-large members. Employee groups selected who would represent them on the committee.

Why not just cut elsewhere to make up for the savings from closing a school?
The district’s reduction in funding due to the economic downturn is now approaching $7 million per year. The district has responded by cutting back employee work year, salaries and benefits, reducing the number of employees, raising class sizes and eliminating instructional programs. The board believes that making further reductions in these areas may impact student achievement and compromise safety, thus they are looking at other alternatives. While closing a school is not anyone’s preferred method of achieving budgetary savings,
it is being considered as a means to prevent further cuts in other areas. While it is
not yet known what further reductions in funding schools will be facing, the
financial impact from closing a school is equivalent to seven teachers, 12 classified
employees, or the total of the library and music/arts programs combined.

How do Fountain Valley schools compare in size to other districts around us?
Fountain Valley School District averages 507 students in eight elementary schools, while Huntington Beach City averages 657 students per school and Ocean View School District averages 580 per school. Fountain Valley is using 57 percent of its maximum capacity while Huntington Beach City uses 65 percent of its capacity and Ocean View uses 78 percent.

Has the District closed schools in the past? If so, what happened to those school sites?
Over the years as Fountain Valley School District enrollment declined several school sites have been closed:

• Arevalos – closed June 1988; in 2003 exchanged for commercial building valued at $6 million.
• Bushard – closed June 1982, sold in 2001 to Olson Urban Housing for homes for $11.4 million.
• Fountain Valley Elem. – closed June 1989; in 2002 land leased for Senior Center, Senior housing and one-third sold for homes to WL Homes for $3 million.
• Harper – closed June 1984; sold in 1994 to Costain Homes for homes for $8.3 million.
• Lamb – closed June 1979; sale pending.
• McDowell – closed June 1979; sold in 2004 to KB Homes for homes for $24.7 million.
• Nieblas – closed June 1983; sold 2006 to Far West for homes for $19.5 million.
• Wardlow – closed June 1982; sale pending.

What happens if the enrollment for our District starts to grow again in the future?
Right now, enrollment is just over 6,300 students. One thousand of these students live outside the district boundaries and transfer into our schools. Local population trends show almost no population growth. Over the last ten years, the city of Fountain Valley only grew 335 residents while Orange County grew by 5.8 percent and the state grew by 10 percent. School enrollment projections show school district population shrinking by 100 to 600 students over the next five years. These projections were completed by an independent demographer and only project for five years at a time because the population is largely dependent on the number of live births in our community.