Costa Mesa : Board Votes to Close Intermediate School

Despite protests from about 100 parents, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board voted 6 to 1 to close Davis Intermediate School in June, 1987, and consolidate the seventh and eighth grades into nearby Costa Mesa High School the following September.

The merger was proposed by Supt. John Nicoll to address the problem of declining enrollment in both schools. Enrollment at Davis has slipped from a high of 1,200 students in the 1970s to 430.

“Almost nobody is ever in favor of closing a school,” Nicoll said. “But schools are getting so small that if we don’t put them together we are going to have some pretty serious problems.”

Karen McGlinn, a spokeswoman for the parents committee, was disappointed with the board’s vote.

“I don’t feel they spent an adequate amount of time considering our input,” McGlinn said Wednesday. “They had five meetings, but the reality is if they had been considering this for two years, they should have formed a parents committee a long time ago.”