Parents Plan Burke Elementary Boycott : Decision to Shut Huntington Beach School Sparks 1-Day Protest

Parents of pupils at a Huntington Beach elementary school slated for closure plan a daylong boycott of the school next Wednesday, the president of the Parent Teachers Organization said Friday.

Children will not simply be kept home from Robert H. Burke Elementary School, said Ed Zschoche, the PTO president. They will be assigned to homes where about 30 trained teachers, assisted by aides, will present “the normal curriculum for their grade level,” Zschoche said.

Boycott Called Illegal

Brian Garland, president of the Huntington Beach City School District Board of Trustees, which this week voted to close Burke at the end of the school year, called the boycott “illegal under the California Compulsory Education Code, (and) regretable.”

Garland said the board “exhaustively” considered each of the alternatives to closing the school with district Supt. Lawrence Kemper before it reached its decision Tuesday night. He called it “the most difficult decision I’ve had to make (in more than eight years on the board).”

“What you’re seeing is a feeling of frustration,” he added.

Due to declining enrollment--a phenomenon affecting many Orange County school districts--and financial problems, the district decided last year to close one elementary and one middle school. The choice of which middle school to close has been delayed until next year.

Zschoche said Kemper and the trustees “have not properly evaluated all of the concerns and have not come to a satisfactory conclusion” on closing an elementary school. The Burke parents will ask the board to reevaluate its position, he said.

The parents are planning a rally Sunday at 2 p.m. in Burke Park, adjacent to the school, he said. At that time, children will be assigned to the in-home classes for the Wednesday boycott and “we will be organizing people for various jobs, including political action activities.”

Ultimately, he said the parents’ action could develop into a recall movement or “working toward replacing them (trustees)” in the November election.

Garland and board members Sherry Barlow and Pat Cohen are up for reelection in November.

In choosing to close Burke, the board disregarded its own blue-ribbon committee’s recommendation that it close Ralph E. Hawes M. D. Elementary School. It also reversed its own decision, reached last month, to close Joseph R. Perry Elementary School.

All three schools have an enrollment of about 400. Garland said Burke was the blue-ribbon committee’s second choice, because of the committee’s desire not to split the district’s special-education program for developmentally disabled children.

By choosing Burke--the choice of Supt. Kemper--the trustees in effect split the special education program, so that about 20 special-education pupils will be sent to the Perry school.