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Fullerton High School District Fighting Yorba Linda Secession

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Times Staff Writer

Fullerton Joint Union High School District officials said Wednesday that they will try next week to block passage of a bill in the Legislature that would permit Yorba Linda to secede from the district and merge with Placentia Unified School District.

The measure, Senate Bill 907, is scheduled for a vote Wednesday in the Senate Education Committee. Fullerton officials said they have been lobbying against the bill.

“Based on the indications we have, SB 907 will not be approved,” Fullerton Supt. Robert C. Martin said.

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Martin said the Fullerton district’s trustees met Tuesday night and agreed that the “present situation is the best for the kids involved.”

“That’s his opinion,” said Phyllis Coleman, a trustee for the Yorba Linda (Elementary) School District, who said she is “very confident” the bill will pass. “If he had children in Yorba Linda, he’d know better. I’ve had three children go to Troy High (in Fullerton), and I know from experience that they’d have gotten more from their education if they’d gone to a high school in their own community.”

Yorba Linda has its own kindergartens and elementary schools but no high school. The city is bordered on three sides by Placentia Unified School District, which has high schools. But Yorba Linda remains part of the Fullerton Joint Union High School District, and most high school students from Yorba Linda must travel through Placentia to get to Troy High, their assigned school, a distance of seven or more miles in some cases.

Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) is carrying the bill that would allow Yorba Linda to secede from Fullerton. His aides in an attempt to fashion a bill acceptable to all, have urged officials of the three districts--Fullerton, Placentia and Yorba Linda--to confer.

But Fullerton’s Supt. Martin said Placentia Unified and Yorba Linda district officials were refusing to consider several provisions that the Fullerton district regards as essential, particularly one that would submit the secession proposal to voters in all three districts, rather than just Yorba Linda.

Officials of all three school districts said they will have representatives in Sacramento on Wednesday.

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