SANTA ANA : Trustees Scrap Plan for Pupil Transfers

After a heated public session, the Santa Ana Unified School District decided this week to keep 200 students enrolled in Santiago Elementary School, rather than transfer them to nearby Fremont Elementary.

More than 100 parents and children from Santiago, many of them chanting and waving hand-made signs, packed the meeting room at Willard Intermediate School on Tuesday night.

Santiago parents overwhelmingly opposed the transfer because they said Santiago has better academic programs and their children have already made friends at Santiago.

“We want to stay in Santiago school!” one woman shouted, as students holding “We Love Santiago” signs crowded in front of the trustees.

The Santiago transfer, combined with another between Heninger and Roosevelt elementary schools, would have netted the district more than $448,000.

The district would have earned more than $400,000 in state grant money by boosting enrollment at year-round schools, such as Fremont, and saved about $48,000 by not having to buy extra classroom bungalows for Santiago.

Both transfers were defeated, however, by a 3-2 vote. Trustees Robert W. Balen and Audrey Yamagata-Noji voted for the transfers, but the other three board members said they wanted to follow the wishes of the majority of Santiago parents.

The Santiago-Fremont transfer would have created a more equal distribution of children, placing 1,080 in Fremont and reducing Santiago to 1,022. A handful of Santiago parents spoke in favor of the transfer, saying that Santiago is overcrowded.

“We have no more room,” Patty Olvera, the incoming Santiago PTA president, told the trustees, “unless you guys plan on adding a second story.”