Total School Solutions, the consultant leading Pasadena Unified School District’s consolidation process, presented multiple scenarios Monday, April 27, that involved Blair High School and Thurgood Marshall Secondary School merging with Pasadena High School and John Muir High School.
The scenarios were the focus of the Superintendent’s School Consolidation Advisory Committee’s sixth meeting, the last before the committee votes on potential consolidation recommendations to be sent to the Board of Education.
Scenarios presented include:
-Merge Thurgood Marshall 9th-12th grade with Pasadena High School and Marshall 6th-8th grade stays at Marshall;
-Merge Blair 9th-12th with Pasadena High School and Blair 6th-8th with Marshall Middle School;
-or Merge Blair 9th-12th with Muir High School and Blair 6th-8th with Octavia E. Butler Middle School;
-or Merge Blair 9th-12th with Muir High School and Blair 6th-8th with Marshall Middle School.
Two of the three options for the Blair High School scenarios would be contingent on the Marshall high school students leaving the campus for PHS so that the incoming middle schoolers from Blair would have room.
Committee members pressed the consultant with questions about the impact to availability of programs and athletics at a combined high school and the potential impacts of disrupting a student’s high school years.
The consultant’s report included estimated cost savings for each scenario, but Joseph Pandolfo, Total School Solutions executive vice president, said those numbers would need to be updated because they were based on staffing ratio that did not take into account the planned cuts approved by the Board of Education for the next school year.
“With any of these mergers there’s always going to be downside,” Pandolfo said. “Does the upside of the merger benefit better than the downside of a merger?”
For a third consecutive meeting, protesters gathered outside PUSD headquarters ahead of the meeting sporting school gear, holding signs and chanting “Save our schools!” and “Stop hurting kids!”
The chants and an air horn could be heard inside the second floor room where Monday’s meeting was held. Inside the meeting room, students silently held signs aloft advocating against school closures.
Monday’s scenarios were the second set proposed by Total School Solutions after it presented the committee with TK-8th grade scenarios at its previous meetings.
-Merge Don Benito Elementary School to Willard Elementary School
-Merge Webster Elementary School to Longfellow Elementary School and Norma Coombs Elementary School
-Merge Eliot Arts Magnet and McKinley School and close McKinley (TK-5). McKinley elementary grade students would go to Hamilton, Madison or Washington
On Monday, Pandolfo presented an additional option for the second TK-8th scenario: Merge Norma Coombs Elementary School to Webster Elementary School.
In addition, members received metrics on transportation needs and information on feeder patterns and environmental impacts. According to the consultant, consolidation would not impact PUSD feeder patterns and environmental impacts would not apply to any proposed scenarios.
Board of Education President Tina Fredericks spoke prior to the meeting to share that the Board of Education has not met regarding consolidation and is not to be involved in the committee’s work.
“If something doesn’t seem right to you, ask questions. Just keep asking,” Fredericks told committee members. “Making sure that every angle has been analyzed, that data is accurate.”
At the end of the meeting, committee members voted on Chromebooks to pair down conflicting scenarios in preparation for the final vote next month. They were asked to provide their preference between the two conflicting TK-8th grade scenarios involving Webster, Longfellow and Norma Coombs as well as the three conflicting scenarios involving Blair High School.
The voting results were not published by the district as of Monday night.
An in-person town hall is scheduled for Tuesday, April 28, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Pasadena High School auditorium. Following a presentation about the process, the consultant and district leaders will be fielding pre-submitted questions followed by a one hour public comment period.
The committee’s final meeting will be held Monday, May 11, where it will vote on potential scenarios that will be sent to the Board of Education as recommendations. The Board of Education has the final say and is expected to make its decision in June.
Any potential closures and consolidations will take effect in the 2027-2028 school year.