Facing its largest decline in student enrollment seen in 40 years, the Ocean View School District is looking at consolidating campuses, with up to four affected by initial recommendations from the district’s leadership.
Meetings will be held this week and next for families at the four schools to outline the issues facing the district and arguments why combing some schools would allow for more programs and opportunities for students, but officials said they also want to hear suggestions from the community at those meetings and that input will be part of the decision making.
“We are really in the preliminary conversation with the community; we want to listen to the community,” said Patricia Singer, the school board’s president, adding no decisions have been made yet. “We want this to be transparent.”
Superintendent Michael Conroy and his executive staff last week gave the school board their recommendation to consider repurposing Spring View Middle School as an elementary school, with its students moved to other campuses, and that Circle View, Village View and Golden View elementary schools be closed and their students relocated.
“As a school district, what is our core mission? It is student learning and achievement,” Conroy said. “The basic question is the number and location of school sites the Ocean View School District should have for optimum student learning achievement now and in the next five to 10 years.”
The district has 6,809 students enrolled this school year, which is down by about 2,600 students from just 10 years ago, and school officials said they don’t see that trend turning around in the next decade. The district has 10 elementary schools and four middle schools; it does not serve high school students. It has one campus in Fountain Valley and one in Westminster, the rest are in Huntington Beach.
Birth rates are down nationwide, officials said, and that trend is reflected in the communities served by the Ocean View district. Since 2014, both ZIP codes served by the district have seen birth rates slow by more than 20% – as much as 25% in one.
Eighth grade classes are much bigger than kindergarten classes at each campus, meaning enrollment will only continue to shrink, Conroy said. The median age in the local community is 55 years old, he said.
“It is literally dying on the vine when it comes to student enrollment,” Singer said, adding that there is a lack of affordable housing in the community, which limits the number of young families who are able to move into the district. “Living in this city is very difficult.”
This isn’t the first time the Ocean View district has closed schools. From 1982-83 to 1992-93, the district closed seven schools when, Conroy noted, the decline in enrollment was about 1,300 students. Enrollment rebounded in 2002-03, but has steadily declined since. Most recently, the district closed an eighth school, Sun View, in the 2017-18 school year.
Conroy said when elementary school populations get smaller, students face more combination classes – meaning two grade levels are taught together to make a big enough class – adding that at bigger schools students might end up in a combo class once in their tenure on campus, while that could happen multiple times at a smaller school.
There are also more teachers at bigger schools to share duties and collaborate.
Larger middle schools can mean more variety in elective classes and academic offerings, as well as extracurricular activities because there are more teachers around to guide them.
“School consolidation would increase our ability to offer more robust programs and ensure greater financial stability,” Conroy said.
It costs about $659,000 per year to keep an elementary school running – that doesn’t include the cost of the teachers, who follow their students, but does include utilities, maintenance and the labor costs for the principal, office staff, librarian, custodian and other non-teaching personnel each school has regardless of how many students there are. A middle school is about $972,000.
Consolidating schools could save the district about $2 million a year and in a three-year span would eliminate the deficit the district has been struggling with, Conroy said.
The declining enrollment also means the district needs fewer teachers; Conroy said it is overstaffed by about 30 and the school board will have to discuss at its next meeting sending out notices in March to alert teachers they might not be needed next school year – a process required by law. Some are temporary teachers, but Conroy said some permanent teachers could be affected.
He said he is proposing a plan that would offer those teachers a “soft landing,” keeping them on next year so they had more time to find new positions.
Jeanette Nash said her son, Kyle Twiford, 6, just found a program that works for him with great teachers at Village View after his special education classes were moved multiple times and he spent a year on Zoom. Because he receives extra support services, he’s been enrolled in the district since he was 3, she said.
“We have a fabulous teacher. We have wonderful aides that are just amazing,” she said of being worried that would be lost if the program is broken up or moved. These are kids who “should have stability.”
She said she’ll be at Wednesday’s informational meeting at the campus and the parents have been organizing to make sure everyone gets the latest information available.
“I understand this is a very difficult topic. It hits school families and the school communities really hard. I understand our schools are the heartbeat of the community,” Conroy said, also adding the special day school at Village View would not be broken up. “We would never separate that program. We would always keep them together.”
The first informational meeting for parents is Tuesday, Feb. 21, at Circle View, followed by Village View on Wednesday, Spring View on Thursday, and Golden View on Monday. All the meetings start at 6 p.m.
The school board next meets Tuesday, Feb. 28.
