Following public outcry, Vallejo school district could rework school closure plan

VALLEJO – The Vallejo school board expressed hesitation with closing a school on Mare Island and drastically reducing the student population of a North Vallejo school during its meeting Wednesday, an indication that board representatives want to consider other plans.

A Vallejo City Unified School District committee tasked with studying possible school closures presented its report at Wednesday’s board meeting and recommended closing Mare Island Health and Fitness Academy and removing the middle school grades of Loma Vista Environmental Science Academy in an effort to improve the district’s finances. The committee also recommended that the board designate three other schools as surplus property, but the board declined to do so.

During the meeting, 17 community members spoke out against school closures, while no one supported them. Of the 17 speakers, 13 spoke specifically about Mare Island Academy.

Zayra Herrera, who is a parent of children that attend Mare Island Academy and also works as a bilingual tutor at the school, said she questions whether the VCUSD values community members’ voices as the district didn’t inform the community about the committee meetings apart from posting about it on its website, which she said she and most other community members didn’t notice.

“The stress this puts on parents and students is excruciating,” Herrera said. “We’re a community and family and you want to take that away from all of us.”

Board Vice President John Fox advocated that the board take no action on Wednesday and said that he did not yet have adequate information to consider the recommendations. He said he requested a cost analysis report and a growth report in September, but has yet to receive them.

“In the six years that I’ve been here I’ve been part of closing a number of schools in the district,” Fox said. “Unfortunately I haven’t seen a benefit to all those closures. There’s so much information we need to make these kinds of decisions.”

Fox expressed concerns that a vacant site could pose an easy target for copper theft, which has been an expensive problem for district schools in the past, and that an empty building could also leave a site vulnerable to a charter school taking it over. Fox also said he wants more information on how development could potentially increase enrollment in certain areas of Vallejo, especially Mare Island, where the Mare Island Company has announced plans to build thousands of units of housing. 

Superintendent Rubén Aurelio told Fox the district plans to release the information he’s been requesting.

“Before we go down the path of physically closing any schools,” Aurelio said, "we want to be sure you have a comprehensive plan that addresses all those questions you’re asking.” 

Both Mare Island Academy and Loma Vista serve transitional kindergarten to 8th grade students. If the board follows the committee’s closure and truncation recommendations, it would likely impact more than 500 students. According to data from last school year, 418 total students attended Mare Island Academy, and 111 students attended Loma Vista’s middle school grades.

A disproportionately high proportion of Latino students attend Mare Island Academy compared to the rest of the district, and a disproportionately high number of English language learners attend both schools. Latino students make up about 52% of the district’s total enrollment, but about 65% of Mare Island Academy's enrollment. English learners make up about 28% of VCUSD students, but 34% of Mare Island Academy’s students, and 36% of Loma Vista’s students.

A state-mandated committee met five times between Sept. 25 and Nov. 4 to study whether the district should proceed with consolidating schools. Its 10 members included former school board representative Ralph Gross, who headed the committee, and Vallejo Education Association President Kevin Steele, who presented the recommendations to the board.

While the committee only recommended that Mare Island Health Academy close and Loma Vista be truncated, it also recommended that the board designate Steffan Manor Elementary, Annie Pennycook Elementary, and Vallejo Charter School as surplus property. If the board designates a campus as surplus, it would allow the board to then close the school in the future.

The district has been under state oversight for 20 years, which has forced it to consolidate schools as enrollment declines, and the district remains under pressure to cut costs. 

While Fox did not deny the need to cut operational costs and consider closures, he asked if the specific schools recommended for closure, truncation, and surplus property designation were the best options. 

The majority of those who spoke out against Mare Island Academy’s closure said they choose to have their children attend the school because they feel its location allows students to feel safe and secure. Mare Island has a population of around 1,000 people and less crime than other areas of the city.

Jonas Youngblood, who has two children at Mare Island Academy, said that she sought the school out for her children after driving around all the schools in town to see what neighborhood she thought they would be safest in.

“The things my daughter is learning is just blowing my mind,” Youngblood said. “She’s safe and she knows it and she feels it, so she can learn.”

The district committee recommended that the students at Mare Island Academy attend Federal Terrace or Lincoln Elementary, but Youngblood said she feels the location of those schools is not safe due to the presence of people experiencing homelessness nearby and fires.

Susan Nicols, who has lived on Mare Island for 19 years, expressed concern that the site might not be secure if it is vacant. The committee recommended that the district retain ownership of Mare Island Academy campus to potentially accommodate increased enrollment expected from residential development in the future, but has not announced plans for how it will use the campus immediately after its closure, should that occur. 

Mare Island homeowners pay thousands of dollars more per year in special taxes than other Vallejo residents, and taxpayers have complained to the city that they don’t get the services they pay for. Nichols said if the school is lost, “it’s one more thing we’re not getting.”

Board President Latyna Young said the board had “a difficult decision to make” and assured the public that the board would take their comments into consideration.

Sarah Polito, a lawyer who the district  hired to guide the process of designating school properties as surplus, said that district staff could “go back to the drawing board to consider modifications” to the resolution “that could be brought back to the board.”

But she said that the committee “has finished its work” and that VCUSD staff would “make potential modifications to what sites the board could designate as surplus.”

In response to an inquiry from board Trustee Carlos Flores about what process guided the committee’s recommendations, Aurelio said geography played a big role.

According to Aurelio, the vast majority of students aren’t able to walk to Mare Island Academy and are transported to school by car. Young said that the reason that so many students come from outside of the immediate area to attend Mare Island Academy is that it’s an academy school. VCUSD students from all throughout the district can sign up for a lottery to attend an academy school.

Aurelio said that the district could look at considering other schools for surplus property designation but the demographic make-up of a school and transportation issues would be a factor.

On Thursday, District spokesperson Celina Baguiao told the Sun that district staff plans to evaluate other school properties and will propose a resolution asking the board to designate them as surplus at a meeting in December or January.