Let's not give up the fight to save Meadows school

We won't save money closing Meadows elementary school. It will immediately reopen as a charter school. Dr. Jeff Baarstad's fiscal impact analysis states that when Meadows reopens as a charter school, the district will save just $19,000 (original projected savings $804,000). Meadows has already submitted a request for charter.

After the November elections, the next elected board isn't legally bound by the 3-2 decision made by this board on June 17 to close Blue Ribbon University and Meadows elementary schools.

The new board can reopen both schools.

Incumbents Dolores Didio and Dorothy Beaubien voted to close both schools. Incumbents Didio and Beaubien are up for reelection in November. According to Dr. Baarstad, the new board will have until December 2008 to make a final decision on school closures.

Sports and coaches stipends

The board decided on May 28 (I was in Utah) to cut coaches stipends by $150,000. The original staff recommendation to the board submitted on May 20 was to cut the administrative position of the associate director of pupil services. Savings: $137,000. Instead, the board ignored the staff recommendation and cut the stipends of the coaches.

One parent told me she thought the board cut the stipends deliberately to stir up the parents to support school closures.

The fiscal 200910 budget debated on June 17 won't be approved until June 16, 2009. Anything can change.

Bad news: 476 public school students currently living within our school district have applied this year to attend other public schools in neighboring school districts. Lost income to the district: $2.7 million, enough to keep both University and Meadows open.

Housing prices and the birth rate aren't the only reasons our enrollment is declining.

Factoid: Susan Falk, president of the United Association of Conejo Teachers (UACT), the teachers union, spoke at the June 17 board meeting opposing the closure of Meadows Elementary School.

Factoid: Pleasant Valley School District closed an elementary school. It then went charter. They thought they would save $700,000. They're now losing $2.4 million a year (source: Ventura County Star).

Closing Meadows reminds me of the famous line from Spock, executive officer of the starship Enterprise: "Most illogical." Mike Dunn Newbury Park

Dunn is a member of Conejo Valley Unified School District's Board of Education.