Irvine Board Closer to School Sale

The school board has taken a step toward selling a closed elementary school, a transaction that could bring the Irvine Unified School District as much as $5 million to help cover losses in last year’s collapse of the Orange County Investment Pool.

District trustees agreed Tuesday night that the six-acre Woodbridge Village school site, used for a variety of independent programs, does not have to be available for public use.

The state Education Code requires that school districts offer surplus property to the city for public projects in neighborhoods lacking parks and playgrounds. But that is not the case in Irvine, city officials told the school district.

The closed elementary school, now the Auxiliary Education Center, is at 31 W. Yale Loop. It was on a list of several school district properties considered for sale shortly after Orange County’s Dec. 6 bankruptcy filing.

The Irvine Unified School District had $96 million in the failed county investment pool, more than any other school district.

School board President Tom Burnham said funds from the sale of the property could be used to replace reserves that were used to help cover bankruptcy losses. But he was quick to say that a decision has not been made yet.

“All we’ve done is take action to allow the staff to continue to pursue the potential sale of the site,” Burnham said. “The board won’t make a decision on the selling of that property until late spring or early summer.”

The property is the site of one of the county’s few multilingual preschools, with programs in six languages. But some of those programs will lose federal funding by the end of the school year, Burnham said, and others can likely be relocated.