Huntington Beach : Board Votes to Close Elementary School

Before a crowd of several hundred parents, the Huntington Beach City School District board voted unanimously Tuesday night to close the Robert H. Burke Elementary School at the end of the current school year.

In choosing Burke, which has about 400 students, the board disregarded a recommendation by its own blue-ribbon committee to close Ralph E. Hawes M. D. Elementary, which also has roughly 400 students.

The board also overturned its decision, made last month, to close the Joseph R. Perry Elementary School, whose enrollment also is around 400 students.

Dozens of the parents addressed the board, many urging that their school be kept open. Due to declining enrollments and spiraling costs, the district last year decided to close one elementary and one middle school. The blue-ribbon committee of residents and district staff was formed to evaluate each of the district’s 10 schools and make recommendations to the board.

The committee, which first met in October, recommended closing the Hawes Elementary and the Ernest H. Gisler Middle School.

Despite that recommendation, the board last month voted 3 to 2 to close the Joseph R. Perry Elementary School at the end of the school year. In addition, either Gisler or the Isaac L. Sowers Middle School would shut down at the end of the 1985-86 school year.

Two weeks later, however, board President Brian Garland, who had voted to close Perry, asked the board to reconsider the decision, which he said was “hastier than it should have been.”

A large contingent of Perry parents also attended the meeting, demanding their school be kept open.

At a study session last Friday, Supt. Lawrence Kemper recommended closing Burke Elementary School instead of Perry.

Kemper based his decision on six criteria: “minimizing boundary changes; disturbing as few students as possible; impacting as few educational programs as practical; limiting the need for additional transportation; seeking a long-term solution to the problem, (and) maximizing cost effectiveness.”

However, Ed Zschoche, president of the Burke Parent Teachers Assn., said Burke Elementary does not meet those criteria as well as other schools. “We agree with these criteria, but we don’t agree Burke fits the criteria,” he said.

Moreover, as an alternate member of the blue-ribbon committee, Zschoche said the board “in public session has never once evaluated the criteria evaluated by the committee.”