Hoots and Catcalls From Crowd of 600 Greet Orange District Officials at City Council Meeting : Villa Park Residents React Angrily to Proposal to Shut Down 2 Schools

Faced with the possible loss of two of the city’s three schools, about 600 residents of the small, affluent city of Villa Park turned out Wednesday night to hear the City Council debate with school administrators.

The Orange Unified School District has said it must close up to four schools this year because of declining enrollment and a budget deficit of about $1.5 million.

The overflow meeting was held in the auditorium of Villa Park High School--one of the two schools recommended for closing by a citizen steering committee of the Orange Unified School District. The other school is Villa Park Elementary.

No Firm Decision

The City Council of the community of 7,000 had asked school district officials to face a community meeting and defend the recommended closings.

No firm decision on closings has been made by the school board, but the steering committee recommended closing Villa Park Elementary after this school year in all of its recommended options.

City Council members, however, accused the school administrators of already having decided to close the Villa Park schools.

“We’re not prepared to give up and say these schools are to be closed yet,” said Mayor Wayne W. Silzel. The audience loudly applauded.

Councilman Robert E. McGowan asked the audience how many would send their children to private schools if Villa Park Elementary were to be closed. About two-thirds of those in the audience raised their hands.

Disregarded Response

Kenneth Brummel, superintendent of the school district and the chief spokesman for the district administrators at the meeting, interjected that he considered a show of hands on “an emotional issue” inappropriate. “I just don’t consider that valid,” he said.

The audience then erupted into hoots and catcalls, and one couple stormed out of the meeting room, saying, “They (school administrators) sound like they already have their minds made up.”

The school board next month will vote on which schools in the district will be closed. If the board closed Villa Park Elementary, its students would go to Serrano Elementary School, which is also in Villa Park, and to Handy Elementary School in Orange. Under the citizen committee recommendations, Villa Park High School would close in 1988.

The unusual City Council meeting underscored the difficult year the Orange Unified School District is facing. The district, which provides schools for Villa Park, Orange and part of Anaheim, revealed in October that, because of a budgeting error, it faced a $4.5-million shortfall. The district school board, to close that gap, wiped out a $3-million reserve.

Pay Increase Granted

The remaining $1.5-million gap, however, has not been closed. School board officials said the budget situation worsened in November when the board reluctantly gave teachers a 3.5% pay increase retroactive to last July and a 1% increase that started this month.

While other problems have contributed to the school district’s money crisis, the root problem is a rapid decline in school-age children.

In the 1970s, the booming Orange district had more than 31,000 students. “We were growing all the time, and I had to be out recruiting teachers,” said Mario Losi, assistant superintendent for personnel services.

But in the 1980s, the student decline began. By this school year, enrollment had dropped to 24,600. Losi said that few young families with children can now afford to buy homes in the Orange area “compared to the 1960s, when there were low-cost homes everywhere and families moving in all the time.”

No Baby Boom Here

Losi also said that despite predictions of a new baby boom, the kindergartens in Orange Unified still show declines. “We have fewer pupils in our kindergartens each year than are graduating from the 12th grade,” he said. “I don’t see any sign of the baby boom people have talked about.”

Four schools have been closed in the district in the past two years. The school board has also voted to close a fifth--Peralta Junior High--at the end of this school year.

The possible closing of Villa Park Elementary and three other elementary schools in the district “is being considered so that we can save our remaining (academic) programs,” Losi said. He pointed out that budget cuts have already wiped out the school system’s music program, curtailed its library services and cut heavily into the counseling positions.

The school board, at its meeting earlier this month, decided that 34 staff positions must be eliminated at the end of this school year. In addition, Losi said he has sent possible layoff notices to the administrators of the four elementary schools now being considered for closing.

Losi noted that state law requires that school employees be notified of possible layoffs by March of each year.