Schools
Advisory Panel to Help Decide Linda Vista Elementary's Fate
Will Saddleback Unified close more elementary schools? Nine people have been nominated for a committee that suggests other uses for so-called "surplus" schools. Their input could play a key role in the board's decision about whether to close Linda Vista.
Saddleback Valley Unified’s board will vote Tuesday on how to make up a panel to advise whether schools being considered for closure are indeed “surplus” properties that could be closed and eventually leased or sold.
The 7/11 Committee (named because of a legislative requirement that it have from seven to 11 members) is important because its input may be used to determine which schools the district will close.
But the choice of whether to close schools—and which ones—still rests with the elected school board.
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Nine people have been nominated to serve on the 7/11 Committee. They are Charles Reames, Dave Gilbert, Joe Homes, Kim Sullivan, Ruth Barg, Daniel Moon, Scott Bennett, Jeff Starr and Molly O’Grady.
Starr is the district’s director of business services, and O’Grady is the outgoing president of the Saddleback Valley PTA Council, which is made up of PTA leaders from 25 schools in the district. Moon is a teacher at Foothill Ranch Elementary School, and Bennett is a district computer analyst who also served as a negotiator for the district’s classified employees union.
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Reames is a parent in the district. Gilbert and Homes are businesspeople. Sullivan and Barg are community members, said district spokeswoman Tammy Blakely.
“This committee has nothing to do with the school closures,” Starr said in a phone interview Monday. “They strictly determine whether a site is surplus or not, and the committee will recommend on whether it is best to be leased, sold or developed. Their role is advisory, and the board can take its recommendation or not.”
The district is considering school closures due to declining enrollment, which is costing the district $3.8 million annually, officials say. Last month, three schools—Trabuco, Linda Vista and Aliso elementaries—were identified by a district consultant, DecisionInsite, and the district’s Facilities Advisory Committee as candidates for closure.
The 7/11 Committee will be asked to advise the board on not just Trabuco, Linda Vista and Aliso Elementary Schools, but also on possible uses for two schools it closed in 2009—La Tierra and O’Neill elementary schools—as well as a warehouse on Via Fabricante in Mission Viejo, according to the board’s agenda.
In February, the school board approved a deal for a Christian school in Laguna Hills, Pathway School Inc., to lease half of the site of O’Neill Elementary in a deal that would have generated $168,000 in new revenue to the district.
But officials at Pathway backed out of the deal in February, said Starr. O’Neill still houses the district’s department of recreation and community services, but many former classrooms remain empty.
The board meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:15 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12, at the Education Center Board Room at 25631 Peter A. Hartmann Way in Mission Viejo.
