Local News in Brief : Placentia : Two School Districts Honoring Assemblyman

Assemblyman is John R. Lewis (R-Orange) will be honored at a joint meeting of the Placentia Unified School District and Yorba Linda School District school boards Monday.

The unusual joint session of the two school boards will be held at 7:30 p.m. at 1301 E. Orangethorpe Ave. in Placentia and will honor Lewis for his successful passage this year of a long-sought bill that would allow the merger of the Yorba Linda elementary grades into Placentia Unified.

For more than 20 years, Yorba Linda, which has no high school of its own, has tried to get either a high school built or merge into a nearby district that has high schools.

High school-age pupils in western Yorba Linda attend Troy High in Fullerton, which is not contiguous to Yorba Linda School District. Fullerton Joint Union High School District has opposed previous attempts by Yorba Linda to secede and merge with a closer high school district.

The bill introduced by Lewis this year was a compromise that still calls for western Yorba Linda high school-age residents to attend Fullerton Joint Union High School District. But all grade school students in the city would be in Placentia Unified School District under the proposed merger. Now, all of eastern Yorba Linda is already in Placentia Unified.

The proposed merger requires a majority vote by residents in both Placentia and Yorba Linda, but support appears strong in both communities. The merger has unanimously been ratified by the Yorba Linda and Placentia school boards and the city councils of both cities. Placentia Unified Supt. Jim Fleming said the proposed merger of the two school systems will be on the November, 1988, ballot in Placentia and Yorba Linda.