2 schools to close, but 8 make the candidate list
By Joann Groff  joann@theacorn.com

The eight elementary schools that will move on to the next level of consideration for closure were named at last week's Conejo Valley Unified School District board meeting.

Maple, Aspen, University, Ladera, Wildwood, Meadows, Park Oaks and Weathersfield were chosen as the best candidates for closure based on criteria approved by the board late last year.

The set of primary criteria included: the number of resident students that will be displaced, the distance displaced students will have to travel, the ability of adjacent schools to absorb displaced students and the relative quality of the schools' facilities.

Jeff Baarstad, deputy superintendent of business services, and his staff said they had expected four or five schools to score much higher than the rest after the criteria was applied.

"That's not what the data told us," Baarstad said. Instead, many of the schools in the middle ranked pretty evenly.

Although Conejo, Manzanita, Cypress, Madrona and Westlake Hills had scores as high as the final eight, they were removed from consideration because they had the potential to create a domino effect. Neighboring schools could not absorb the students from these schools without pushing some current students out to others, therefore displacing many more students.

After removing the schools that could create that effect, Baarstad's team rescored the remaining schools. The board had the option of moving four, six or eight of the highest-scoring schools to the next level, and the board voted to take eight.

"Choosing all eight gives us the opportunity to look through the lens of the secondary criteria," said board member Tim Stephens.

The remaining eight schools will be blindly scored using the secondary criteria, which include: the number of nonresident students directly displaced, the number of specialdayclass classrooms displaced, the impact on diverse student distribution, the number of additional major highways and streets crossed by students, the need for additional bus transportation and the number of elementary schools feeding more than one middle school.

On Tuesday night, the superintendent called for the district to notify all parents and staff members that the school closure process was to be temporarily put on hold at the request of board president Dorothy Beaubien. At the next meeting on Feb. 5, the board will discuss the matter further, but no decision will be made on the specific schools that will close.

For more information, call the school closure hotline at (805) 497-9511 or click on "school closure information" on the CVUSD website, www.conejo.k12.ca.us.