FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Panel Says School Should Be Closed

Faced with declining enrollment, a committee formed by the Fountain Valley School District has recommended that at least one more campus be closed by the end of the school year, officials said Friday.

In a detailed report, the committee argued that Fountain Valley Elementary School, the district’s oldest elementary school, should be closed in June and its students divided among three other schools. The recommendation was presented by the special panel Thursday night. District trustees are expected to vote on the matter in January, after a public hearing.

The elementary school was targeted for closure last year because it had the lowest enrollment in the district. But under pressure from disgruntled parents, trustees opted to close another elementary school instead.

Seven schools have been closed since 1979 because of dwindling enrollment. Experts blame soaring home prices that have kept young families out. The average price of a single-family home in the Fountain Valley area is more than $220,000.

“The price range for homes here is really out of reach for the younger family,” said Cheryl Norton, a member of the committee and senior manager with the district. “The community is aging and the children in the neighborhoods are all grown up.”

The district, which serves most of Fountain Valley and part of northeastern Huntington Beach, was one of the fastest-growing school systems in Orange County 20 years ago. Families with young children were moving in as fast as housing tracts in the two cities could be built.

But since 1973, when enrollment peaked at just over 12,000 students and 19 schools, the district has experienced a continuous decline. There are now about 5,000 students and 12 schools.

“It is very discouraging for the district to have this happen,” said Roger Belgen, a 17-year member of the school board. “We started out with a variety of neighborhood schools to give that close-knit feeling. We’re losing that element now because we are losing the children.”

With the exception of Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley is the only city in Orange County experiencing significant drops in enrollment. Officials expect that trend to continue until 1992, when the number of students entering kindergarten is expected to equal the number of students graduating from high school.

Although a decision on the school-closure recommendation isn’t expected for a few weeks, trustees are bracing for protests from parents of the school’s students.

“We dealt with it last year, and then their complaint was that our projections of declining enrollment were wrong,” Norton said. “So we waited a year to see if things changed, and they haven’t. So we are back to our original suggestion.”