The Point Loma cluster of schools has long been a topic of conversation on the peninsula. With public charter schools such as High Tech High drawing students away from the district, the Point Loma cluster has struggled to fully utilize all of its facilities to capacity, with elementary and middle schools being the hardest hit by decreasing enrollment.
Discussion of reconfiguring the schools’ rather unique grade groupings “” elementary education ends at grade four, Dana Middle School provides instruction for grades five and six, while Correia Junior High School covers grades seven and eight “” has again emerged as a pressing issue.
School board member John de Beck revived the debate by hosting a June 8 meeting on the subject prior to Area 1 Superintendent Carol Barry’s appointment, who currently oversees the cluster study.
“I told them [at the meeting] that I was giving them the background information that they needed to talk intelligently about what the cluster could be and why it is the way it is,” de Beck said.
Barry has since become involved in organizing a formal discussion, which she hopes to hold by November.
CLUSTER HISTORY
De Beck and Alan Bersin, former superintendent of public education, initiated the first Point Loma cluster configuration study in 1999. Parents, community members, teachers, cluster principals and district staff were all involved in the study.
In 2000, the school board approved the study’s recommendations, which created the current configuration: Barnard, Cabrillo, Dewey, Loma Portal, Ocean Beach, Silver Gate and Sunset View elementary schools as kindergarten through grade four; Dana Middle School as grades five and six; Correia Junior High School as grades seven and eight; and Point Loma High School as grades nine through 12.
“The reason we went to the configuration we have was to create community interest in keeping both of the middle schools high quality because they would know that their kids were going to go through both schools instead of having a Mason-Dixon line on some place on the point, where one school is better than the other,” de Beck said.
Another part of that decision was to beef up and improve the curriculum throughout the community, de Beck added.
“It wasn’t 100 percent, but the consensus was that it was a good idea,” he said of the community opinion.
According to de Beck, discussions arose when news spread that San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Carl Cohn was supporting a school in Mission Hills that would teach kindergarten through eighth grade.
“It triggered a lot of interest on the point,” de Beck said. “The parents that are now in the elementary schools were not active in the [1999] configuration study. They didn’t have an understanding of why they had to send their kids out of their elementary schools into a fifth-grade middle school. That started to raise questions.”
Barry cited declining enrollment as another reason for reviving the cluster study.
“We have elementary schools that are under 200 students, which isn’t economically feasible to run,” she said.
POSSIBLE CONFIGURATIONS
Currently, many possibilities are being discussed, one of which is creating kindergarten through fifth-grade elementary schools and sixth- to eighth-grade middle schools, with the high school remaining the same.
“I’ve heard from some parents who would like their fifth-graders to stay at the elementary schools,” Barry said, adding that such a configuration – standard to many communities – could work in Point Loma.
But according to Ruben Flores, music teacher at Dana Middle School, fifth-graders at Dana get a full music program, science, physical education, drama and guitar classes, which they would not receive at the elementary level.
Conversely, if fifth-graders were sent to the elementary level, there would not be enough students to fill both Dana and Correia with sixth- to eighth-graders and too many students to relocate to just one of the two sites. However, if Correia – the larger site – were expanded, it could handle such a student population.
An empty Dana could then be considered for educational programs or a magnet school, which would encourage new enrollment, Barry said.
WHAT’S NEXT
Contrary to rumors that the study is finished, nothing has been decided yet, said Barry.
“It’s interesting – there are a lot of rumors in Point Loma that things have already been decided,” Barry said, “but really, my role is to figure out what the community really wants. I’m trying to figure out what are the grade configurations that best meet their needs but are also economically feasible for the district.”
In the upcoming months, Barry said she will work to make sure that parents know what these schools are about, what kinds of things they offer and what a kindergarten through fifth-grade configuration could provide.
“There were a lot of people there supporting certain schools, but that’s not really the issue,” Barry said. “The issue is what makes the most sense for their children at our schools, so we want to make sure we get an accurate picture of that.”
De Beck said he thinks the issue will not be resolved anytime soon.
“The dialogue will continue in a way that everybody gets to learn more about their schools and that some consensus will emerge that the board can consider.”
