San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) may need to close or rearrange elementary schools that have fewer students in response to an estimated $40 million school district budget shortfall this year, school officials said this week. Elementary schools with the fewest students appear on a list of about 17 schools now being considered for closure by the district. One Ocean Beach campus may be spared the budget ax; another may not be so fortunate. Two magnet schools being considered by the Small Schools Committee are Ocean Beach\u2019s Barnard Elementary on Santa Monica Avenue and Pacific Beach\u2019s Crown Point Elementary on Ingraham Street. Both are burgeoning magnet schools that began last year. And both have seen slight increases in enrollment since then, school officials said. If the magnet programs close, however, the action could threaten federal funding for the district\u2019s overall magnet schools in 2011, according to a letter from the SDUSD Office of Magnet Programs. The government awards grants for magnet schools every three years. “We make a commitment every three years. If we close the [magnet] program before it\u2019s completed, the federal government doesn\u2019t look positively on that,” said SDUSD spokesman Jack Brandais. So would magnet status in and of itself prevent the district from shutting them down? “Not necessarily,” said Small Schools Committee chair Jim Varnadore. The 8-member committee met with parents and community members at the Eugene Brucker Education Center, 4100 Normal St., on Monday Jan. 12. The committee should have a list of “10 or a dozen” elementary schools recommended for closure or reorganization by the committee\u2019s Monday, Jan. 19 meeting, said school officials. The committee looks at attendance, overall cost per student and academic performance \u2014 among other things \u2014 to determine options for recommend to the school board. The final decision regarding school closures rests with the district\u2019s Board of Education, A decision is expected be made and implemented by this fall. Barnard Elementary School Principal Edward Park said his school and the new Mandarin Chinese magnet program there should remain untouched. “I don\u2019t speak for the school district,” Park said. “[But] I feel strongly confident that our effort and energy will not be wasted away.” The newly placed Park came from the Los Angeles Unified School District to help administer the magnet program last year. Barnard had about 160 students then. Now it has about 190, he said. Although it\u2019s growing, it\u2019s still one of the most expensive schools in the district to run with a budget of about $1.8 million, according to school officials. The school also received between $300,000 and $500,000 over the last two years to pay for the Mandarin Chinese magnet program. The federal grant money pays for teachers, equipment and other magnet program costs, Park said. But if the program goes away, the money slated for next year evaporates and is not applied elsewhere. Crown Point Elementary in Pacific Beach, which also recently started the Suzuki violin magnet program, has also grown. School officials expected about 112 students this year but ended up with 259, according to school officials. Crown Point had a budget of about $889,000 last year, according to school officials. The magnet program was meant to attract more students from around the city and, according to Crown Point Principal Barbara Boone, the program does exactly that. She said she\u2019s confident the district would keep the Crown Point Suzuki violin program where it is. “It\u2019s my belief … that because we\u2019re a magnet school that there is or should be a protection, but I can\u2019t speak for the district,” Boone said. While schools like Barnard and Crown Point may have “killer conditions” precluding closure, other schools throughout the district, including schools like Sequoia Elementary, Carver Elementary, Bayview Elementary and Cabrillo Elementary, have students under 400 and are being considered for closure by the committee. Parents, teachers and administrators from Bayview Terrace Elementary attended Monday\u2019s meeting. Bayview Elementary teacher David Weaks said moving Crown Point students and not Bayview\u2019s students would impact the least amount of students and staff. “[Administrators] will be placed, teachers will be placed somewhere \u2026 but the 300 [Bayview] students, where are they going to go?” he said. About 265 students currently attend Bayview Terrace Elementary. But if Bayview were closed, about 162 students from the school would have to relocate from the beach area. Most students would go to Kate Sessions Elementary School, 2150 Beryl St.; Pacific Beach Elementary, 1234 Tourmaline St.; or to Crown Point, according to SDUSD documents. Although Bayveiw isn\u2019t big enough to support the growing violin program, a majority of Crown Point\u2019s students could move to the nearby school, according to school officials. About 106 Crown Point students, however, would have to leave the beach area school cluster, according to plans being considered by the district. With all the talk about “hard data” and enrollment numbers at Monday\u2019s meeting, parents and some administrators reminded the Small Schools Committee about the many other functions the school sites serve. Bayview\u2019s Family Resource Center, an on-site family resource center, offers referral services for counseling, medical paperwork and financial literacy workshops. It also focuses on preventing domestic violence and promoting nutrition. Samantha Hua, the center\u2019s program manager, said it would also be very difficult for a lot of low-income families to cope with major changes. “Shutting down our school means closing our family resource center, which strengthens families,” Hua said. “Our program’s goal is to provide children and families the support they need to thrive, so that children can go to school ready to learn. This closure would be detrimental to many of our families.” The Small Schools Committee is expected to have a final list of schools and recommendations to the SDUSD Board of Education after a final meeting at the Eugene Brucker Education Center on Monday, Jan. 19 at 12:30 p.m. in the auditorium.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) may need to close or rearrange elementary schools that have fewer students in response to an estimated $40 million school district budget shortfall this year, school officials said this week. Elementary schools with the fewest students appear on a list of about 17 schools now being considered for closure […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Barnard\u2019s magnet status could stem a possible closure","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11593,11561,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-no-images","category-peninsula-beacon","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}