FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Groups Seek Unified School District

Parents bothered by a possible school closing, budget cuts and the relocation of a school for troubled teen-agers into their area have banded together to try to create a unified school district.

Three groups of parents, each disgruntled over a different issue, met for the first time Monday night to discuss a joint effort. The parents plan to circulate petitions aimed at getting the unification issue on the November ballot.

The Fountain Valley School District serves kindergarten through eighth grades in Fountain Valley and part of Huntington Beach. The city’s only high school is in the Huntington Beach Union High School District. Creating their own unified school district, the parents argued, would bring more state money.

The issues that prompted formation of the groups are the suggested closing of the city’s oldest elementary school, Fountain Valley Elementary, and the proposed move of Wintersburg High School, for students with behavioral and academic problems, from Ocean View High in Huntington Beach to Fountain Valley High. The third group, from Roch Courreges Elementary school, wants smaller class sizes and the return of special programs and standardized testing.

“We really just want to inform the public on what is happening inside the district,” said Cherie Dwhytie, leader of SOS (Save Our Schools), the coalition group. “We want them to know what is happening to their schools,” she said. If “we claim our high school, we’ll get the funds we need to keep our schools open.”

School board officials say that because of the city’s 10-year steady decline in student enrollment, cuts and closures are necessary to keep the school system financially afloat.

Fountain Valley has closed seven schools since 1979 as a result of low enrollment. Enrollment peaked at 11,866 students in 1972 but now is 5,838.

School officials attribute the decline to the small number of young families moving into the community.

“Because of the prices of homes here, it is somewhat difficult for a young family to move in this area,” said Cheryl Norton, director of community services for the district. The community is aging, she said.

Norton said that led the school board to approve the sale of four of its school sites last year and the leasing of four others.

But SOS members say they have figures that show the enrollment decline has stopped, and they predict that it will grow again within five years.

Parent Carol Barnes said Monday: “I became disturbed when I was told by the school board that enrollment was decreasing, and I realized my son’s eighth-grade class enrollment had gone up. . . . I took it upon myself to study the figures, and I found that we should wait and see what happens over the next five years.”

To get the unification measure on the ballot, SOS must get the signatures of at least 25% of the registered voters in the affected area, school officials said.