HUNTINGTON BEACH : Board Will Consider School-Closure Plan

A budget-cutting plan that would force nearly 20% of the students in the Ocean View School District to switch schools next fall will be considered by the board tonight.

The emotion-laden issue, marked by two weeks of parents protesting the proposed closure of Golden View, Haven View and Lake View elementary schools and radical boundary changes at other schools, was intensified Monday when the advisory committee making the recommendation refused to fully endorse its own plan.

The Master Planning Committee of Eleven, in formally presenting its recommendation to the board, told trustees that the school closures should be delayed until the district desegregates Latino-dominated Oak View Elementary School and studies the idea of a middle-school system.

If the board closes schools now, and next year implements plans to form middle schools for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders and integrate Oak View, many students who change schools this fall may have to move again in 1991, committee chairman Scott Miller said. Additionally, schools that are closed when classes recess for summer later this month might have to reopen next year, he said.

“We strongly recommend this plan be held in abeyance until (the board) can decide these critical issues,” Miller said at Monday’s public hearing, which 750 parents attended to denounce the plan.

Closing the three schools, which officials say would chisel about $750,000 from a budget shortfall estimated to be as large as $1.8 million, would be “irresponsible,” Miller said, unless the board commits to retaining the district’s current K-6 and K-8 system on a long-term basis.

The district last month began studying the desegregation of Oak View, where the student population is 84% Latino. District officials hope to integrate the school before state education officials next year review the ethnic mix at each of the district’s schools, which an Orange County Department of Education legal adviser says could prompt the state to mandate a desegregation plan.

By forming middle schools and changing other schools to K-5 facilities, the district could save money by receiving higher secondary-school funds from the state and trimming its staff at several schools. When the advisory committee was formed in March, it favored the middle-school plan as an alternative to school closures but abandoned the idea when members were informed that they had too little time to implement such a plan, Miller said.

As the committee recommendation stands, in addition to the three school closures, the boundaries of five other schools would be changed. Also, Crest View Elementary School, now a K-8 school, would be converted to a K-6 site.

School board members have not publicly stated what they will do after tonight’s 7 p.m. public hearing at the Marina High School gymnasium. But trustee Carolyn Hunt, despite chastising the committee for backing away from its proposal, told the audience of parents Monday that postponing a move may be wise.