School Board to Hear Reports on School Closures

Residents concerned about school closures will finally get a chance to address the San Bruno Park School Board about the issue at its , where discussions about reducing the number of elementary schools in the city will be high on the agenda.

For the last several months, the issue of whether the school district could possibly close a school has been hotly debated. But the discussions have been contained to a about which school should be closed if the school board decided to take a vote of its own.

The school district has maintained that closing a school would be necessary next year because of declining enrollment, inadequate state funding and a desire to reduce the number of combination classes at each school.

Now the issue lies in the hands of the five schools trustees, two of whom have publicly stated their opposition to school closures.

The school board will only be receiving the final report from the school closures committee and won't be making any decisions yet. But the presentation alone is expected to set off a long debate among the school board members and residents.

The consultants from Total School Solutions, the firm tasked with compiling a boundary study, will also be presenting its final report to the board. The boundary study has been been controversial ever since a that suggested different options for school closures.

Interestingly, the Total School Solutions study makes some recommendations that contradict the work of the district committee that developed its own recommendation about school closures.

Among the study's recommendations:

• The number of elementary schools in the district would have to be reduced from seven to five to have fewer combination classes at each school.
• Closing would balance enrollment the most and not substantially impact the walking distance of students at that school.

Part of the district committee's recommendation was to close because it would be left with the smallest school population next year.

The school board meeting will be at 7 p.m. at Rollingwood Elementary School.

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