Huntington Beach : Burke Parents Present Proposals to Save School

A group of parents from a Huntington Beach school slated for closure has presented the school board with a set of proposals that it says would save almost $800,000 annually.

Ed Zschoche, president of the Robert H. Burke Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization and a leader of the effort to persuade the board to reconsider closing Burke, said the Huntington Beach City School District can avoid closing any school if the proposals are implemented.

The proposals were submitted by a parents’ group called S.O.S. Burke, which claims several hundred supporters.

If implemented, the proposals would save $790,579, Zschoche said. The plan would do away with two of three assistant superintendents, an assistant principal and six custodial positions. Several other staff positions would be consolidated.

Board of Trustees President Brian Garland, however, dismissed the plan as “basically, a rather simplistic analysis of a $16-million budget done by some people with the right intentions but not really the training or (understanding of) educational policies to make a budget analysis.” He said he could not support many of the recommendations.

The parents presented their report to the trustees early this week and Tuesday night formally called on the board to implement the recommendations.

No action on the report was taken at Tuesday’s board meeting, but Garland said the trustees “will be looking at some of the items on this list” at “budget hearings coming up in a couple of months.”

The board president’s reaction to the proposals seemed to dash any hopes the parents might have entertained that the trustees would reconsider their decision to close Burke at the end of the school year.