Christian School May Move to O’Neill Elementary Campus

A private Christian school in Laguna Hills may move to the campus of the shuttered O’Neill Elementary by next fall, under a proposal to be voted on Tuesday by the Saddleback Valley Unified School District.

The school board is being asked by Superintendent Clint Harwick to approve a use agreement that would allow Pathway School Inc. to lease half of the property at the former elementary school in Mission Viejo. The district closed O’Neill in 2009 because of declining enrollment.

The site now houses the district’s department of recreation and community services and some adult-education courses, but many former classrooms remain empty.

According to the board’s agenda, the site would be leased at a starting rate of $0.66 per square foot, or $17,007 per month, and the agreement would cover one year.

If the board approves the lease, it would generate approximately $168,000 in new revenue for the district, and Pathway could move onto the site at the start of the new school year in September, said Jeff Starr, director of business services for the district. The recreation offices would remain at O’Neill, Starr said.

Pathway School Inc. serves grades K-8 and is renting space from St. George’s Episcopal Church, at 23802 Avenida de la Carlota in Laguna Hills.

According to Pathway’s website, the school offers a curriculum guided by Christian principles to students who struggle in a traditional classroom setting. Pathway serves at-risk learners who do not qualify for intervention programs in public schools, as well as students with identified learning differences such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities, dyslexia and Asperger's syndrome, the website says.

Susie Wenger, Pathway’s founder, said she did not want to comment on the proposed lease agreement until it receives board approval. Wenger said Pathway now serves 40 students in small, multi-graded classrooms with individualized education plans and no more than 12 students per teacher.

“We’ve been looking for a long time,” Wenger said.

The board is also being asked to adopt a resolution in support of Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to place a measure on the June 2011 ballot extending temporary tax measures for another five years.

Brown’s proposed state budget would rely on a combination of spending cuts and tax revenues to fill a $25 billion budget gap. Brown’s proposed budget largely spares K-12 education this year, but he has said that without the tax revenues, public schools would face deep cuts.

The resolution notes that the district has already cut $32 million from its budget last year alone, and that without the passage of a ballot measure, the district expects to lose at least $335 per student or $10 million in annual revenues.

The school board is also scheduled to hear a budget update from Geri Partida, its Assistant Superintendent for Business. In December, Partida warned the board that Saddleback Valley Unified is in a fiscal emergency and will be facing tough fiscal decisions this spring.

The district has a $9 million budget deficit for the 2011-12 school year, and in 2012-13, that deficit could rise to as much as $34 million because federal stimulus funds and reserve funds will no longer be available, Partida said in December.

The board meeting is scheduled to begin with the budget update at 4:15 pm on Tuesday, Feb. 8, at the Education Center boardroom, at 25631 Peter A. Hartmann Way in Mission Viejo. The board will adjourn for its private session at 5:15 p.m., and the public session will resume at 6:15pm.