Transfer Adds Woes Family Can Ill Afford

Construction executive Greg Dudics and his wife, Darlene, have spent six hard months battling to keep their family on track.

Their son, who suffers from depression, has been in and out of a psychiatric hospital, and their daughter has become trapped between what Dudics described as a county school district’s obstinateness and another’s helplessness.

On Monday, Danielle Dudics, 14, will be prevented from going to her high school, denying her a source of support that her father said has sustained her through the family’s traumas.

Danielle, a freshman, is hoping for a last-minute reprieve, asking officials to reconsider their decision to force her transfer to Troy High School, part of the Fullerton Joint Union High School District, instead of letting her stay at El Dorado High School, part of the Placentia Unified School District.

“I really want to stay at El Dorado,” she said Thursday. “I had to change schools in sixth grade, and it was really hard to fit in. I don’t want to have to do that again.”

Danielle spent the summer training with El Dorado’s band and cheerleaders. She is a proud member of the school’s flag-twirlers.

“It’s pretty much my whole life to be at El Dorado,” she said.

Causing Danielle’s predicament is a 1988 state law that merged the Yorba Linda School District with the Placentia district. That law, approved by voters in November, 1988, allowed elementary school students in Yorba Linda to attend Placentia schools--but required that they attend Fullerton district high schools once they reach ninth grade.

In June, the Dudicses moved from Placentia to Yorba Linda, putting them under the act. As a result, Danielle and her brother would both have been required to go to Troy this year.

Given the circumstances of Danielle’s case, Placentia officials allowed her to enter El Dorado in September while her father argued for her to be left there permanently. Changing schools while at the same time coping with her brother’s disorder at home would only have increased her anxiety, Dudics argued, producing a doctor’s recommendation that Danielle be kept in her current school.

“There’s a lot of havoc at the house,” he said. “Her school gives her something to hang on to.”

Although Fullerton officials permitted the Dudicses’ son to remain at El Dorado, they denied Danielle’s request, and a quirk in the 1988 law prohibits the Dudicses from appealing. Nearly all inter-district transfers may be appealed to county education departments, experts said, but the 1988 law merging Placentia and Yorba Linda authorizes only Fullerton officials to make those judgments.

The merger law was enacted after years of debate, and it took a delicate compromise to win Fullerton’s neutrality on the matter. Fullerton officials have long feared that Yorba Linda residents would try to have their children sent to Placentia high schools.

“With the language that’s in there, it’s hard to imagine that there could be an appeal,” said Terry Bustillos, administrator of business services for the County Department of Education.

But Dr. James O. Fleming, superintendent of Placentia district, said that while he would not comment on Fullerton’s decision to require Danielle’s transfer, he believes that drafters of the merger law intended an appeal to be part of the process.

“I don’t think this was the spirit of the bill,” said Fleming, who participated in the discussions that led to drafting it. “This is the only situation I’m aware of in the state of California where a parent hasn’t had the opportunity to appeal a decision of this kind.”

Placentia officials, Fleming added, would be happy to keep Danielle in their classrooms if they could. But their hands are tied.

“It sounded to us like the child’s got enough problems without having to change schools,” Fleming said. “But we’re going to obey the law, and therefore we must withdraw her.”

The situation has driven Dudics to distraction, as he has spent months trying to flag the attention of state and local officials. Most have ignored his pleas or dismissed them by citing the 1988 law, Dudics said.

Gary Mieger, Fullerton’s assistant superintendent of instructional services, said he could not comment on the case: “This is a student confidential matter, handled in closed session.”

Dudics said it irritates him mightily that Fullerton officials will not simply make an exception in what he considers a clearly exceptional circumstance.

“I’m just trying to protect my family’s mental health,” he said.