An updated school consolidation plan that closely resembled a previously rejected school closure proposal was presented at a Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education special meeting on Thursday, Aug. 13. But amid public pushback, board trustees tabled considerations of the specifics of a revived plan.
During an activity entitled “Data Sets to Consider,” a plan that included multiple school consolidations was listed for trustees and district administrative members to consider. The plan included different consolidation possibilities, such as merging Blair High School ninth-12th with Pasadena High School and merging Thurgood Marshall ninth-12th grade with Pasadena High School.
The board voted 4-3 in June to begin a “district transformation process” to replace a previous controversial school consolidation exploratory process. Potential school closures and internal communications between some trustees riled community members, who showed up in droves last school year to protest board meetings where consolidation was discussed.
Trustees did not reach a decision on when a vote to consolidate schools would take place during the Thursday meeting, which lasted six hours. The board approved creating a separate committee, which would include every trustee, to define the work of transformation in the district in a 6-1 vote, with Trustee Jennifer Hall Lee dissenting.
The board tabled every other action item on the agenda, which included defining the district transformation process and approving the information used by board members to make any consolidation decisions.
The meeting was held on the same day that recall election proposals were approved by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder County Clerk for Board President Tina Fredericks and Trustee Scott Harden for their involvement in the merger process and alleged Brown Act violations. Community members have until Dec. 11 to collect signatures from 20% of eligible voters for the recall elections to be held.
“Our last meeting was about the enrollment projections, and the fact is, with declining enrollment, 400-500 students per year, which is the entire school, that’s a problem to solve,” Fredericks said during the meeting. “By aligning our enrollment to the capacity, we are then operating at the most efficient level, and we can take those savings to strengthen our programs and expand opportunity to our students.
“Eighty percent of our budget is for people, our staff. You want to put that limited number of staff members in front of as many students as possible. And how you do that is you have fewer schools.”
There was audible dissent from the audience to Fredericks’ comments throughout the meeting.
In response to her earlier suggestion for everyone in the room to “be focused and not distracted” during the discussion, a community member in the audience responded to “follow your own words.” At another time when Fredericks shared her desire for everyone in the room to “be present” throughout the discussion, community members laughed out loud in response.
Parents and community members shared impassioned criticisms of the district’s plans during public comment, questions on if consolidating schools would actually save the district money, urges to delay a consolidation process until after the next board election in November and desires for the board to provide continuity for students impacted by the Eaton fire.
“Why not let the voters weigh in before you make irreversible decisions about our neighborhood and community schools?” said PUSD parent Lisa Kroese. “Our children and families are still recovering from the Eaton fires. They need continuity, stability and community, not another massive disruption.”
Sierra Madre Mayor Kristine Lowe said during public comment that closing schools would not solve the district’s fiscal crisis.
“The newest California research examined school closures across our own state and found that closures did not improve districts’ budget deficits. Costs went down, revenues went down too,” she said. “If you lose 300 more students, that’s an annual loss, not a revenue. In an enrollment-funded system like California, losing students will hurt us more. PUSD should understand this firsthand. So, before PUSD closes another neighborhood school in the name of financial savings, show us the numbers.”
Felita Kealing, the assistant coordinator of marketing, student recruitment and community relations, at Thurgood Marshall Secondary School and a PUSD school board candidate, read out the names of students who have left the district due to the instability brought on by the board’s consolidation discussions.
John Muir High School Athletic Director Alfredo Resendiz spoke in favor of school consolidation, arguing that district services have already worsened due to financial losses and cited that his principal had to begin managing the school’s Chromebooks because of staffing shortages.
“The skeleton schools are coming. This year, we’re going to be less safe. This year, we’re going to be less clean. This year, we’re going to be less administratively supported. This year, we’re going to be less technologically supported,” he said. “You know me, close them schools.”
The board spent the meeting discussing what a committee working on consolidation should consist of and identifying goals for the new district transformation process. The discussion was facilitated by Natalia Guerra, director of community partnerships and impact at Collaborate PASadena.
After the first round of discussion, the board concluded that the district’s transformation process needed to better involve community engagement and include development of the Board’s leadership before decisions on transformation were made.
Guerra emphasized that the district transformation process was only a “working definition” and not finalized.
Lee and Trustees Michelle Richardson Bailey and Patrice Marshall McKenzie argued that the Board needed to regain the community’s trust before engaging in a transformation process.
Student Board member Lula Matsuura said that students were most concerned about the continuity of teachers and extracurricular programs as the board considered consolidation and argued for the involvement of students in future committees to decide the consolidation process.
The board also discussed different data sets that should be studied as part of the consolidation, ranging from possible savings from consolidating staff members and programs to research conducted by Stanford University that determined that school closures do not result in fiscal gain.
Trustee Michelle Richardson Bailey said the only data set that mattered was the wellbeing of the community.
“If you want to consider a data set, I would say not have this discussion or not have the vote,” she said. “This is our first board meeting of the school year. We haven’t planned our vision. We haven’t planned our goals. The board hasn’t done a self-evaluation, and yet here we are having this conversation.”
Ultimately, Lee said the board was not ready to restart discussions on consolidation.
“This is all really nice intent, but we’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic here because this board needs so much work that we have to start at ground zero,” she said. “I would say a board committee of the whole on building trust on the Board that has nothing to do with transformation.
“Zero. We are not ready for the gravity of the conversation, for transformation or even potential consolidation.”
Sam Mulick is a correspondent with the Southern California News Group.