Fundamental School Parents Worry That Busing Will Undermine Success

A proposal to bus students from Fremont Elementary to nearby Greenville Fundamental School--one of several suggestions to ease severe overcrowding--has spurred parents to request a meeting tonight with Santa Ana Unified’s trustees to air concerns about changing Greenville’s highly regarded program.

Greenville, which has a waiting list of more than 600 students, is one of the district’s four fundamental schools, all of which set tough grade and dress standards and teach an all-English curriculum that focuses on reading, writing and mathematics. Parents who enroll their children at those campuses sign contracts agreeing to enforce strict attendance and homework rules.

Some parents say they fear that adding too many more students at Greenville would undermine the school’s success by increasing class size and weakening its rigorous curriculum.

“It’s a bad idea to bus kids in from other schools,” said Lorri McPeck, who has two children at Greenville and is one of the 200 parents expected at tonight’s session. “The fundamental program is a school of choice.”

School board president John Palacio emphasized Tuesday that busing is just one of numerous ideas being considered as the district tries to cope with overcrowding.

“Our elementary schools are somewhere between two to three times the original capacity,” Palacio said. “We’ve had a growth rate of approximately 15% over the last three years, one of the highest growth rates of any urban school district in California.”

The district is trying to build community support to put a school bond measure on the November ballot. The bond issue would generate $115 million to be used for school construction. But even with passage of such a measure, Palacio said, expansion would take time.

The possibility of busing students to Greenville has parents so concerned that one questioned whether it might be a scare tactic to ensure passage of the bond issue.

“There is a possibility that, by threatening to transfer 200 students into the school and destroy the fundamental nature of the school, this could be perceived as political leverage by the board to get the Greenville parents to support a proposed bond issue,” said Glenn Mondo, whose has two children at Greenville. “The timing is suspicious.”

School board clerk Nativo Lopez said that, even if busing were approved, it would not change Greenville’s English-only curriculum. The district’s staff also proposed busing students from Wilson Elementary School to Muir, another fundamental school, he said. And if any busing proposal is approved, he said, students from other district schools that are already on the waiting lists for Greenville would be considered first.

Lopez and Palacio both said that the district must weigh the needs of all of its 55,000 students. Overcrowding is so critical, they said, that some campuses no longer have playgrounds, libraries, cafeterias or parking lots--that space has been taken for portable classrooms or storage.

At Lowell Elementary School, library books are kept beneath a stairwell because the library is being used as a classroom, Palacio said.

Lopez said the busing proposal was one of several ideas presented at a March 9 meeting by a district panel of parents, faculty and administrators who studied short-term solutions to overcrowding. Other suggestions were additional portable classrooms, double sessions, flexible schedules, a year-round school calendar and drawing new boundaries for determining which school a child will attend.

“It’s important to note that the board is merely soliciting input,” Lopez said. “That’s not to say that any of these or any combination of these will be the ultimate decision of the board. But one fact does remain: We have severe, severe overcrowding throughout the district that requires a short-term but, more important, a long-term permanent solution.”

Tonight’s meeting between school board trustees and Greenville parents is set for 6:30 p.m. on the campus. No action will be taken by the trustees, who say they will simply hear parents’ suggestions and concerns, then discuss them further at the board’s March 23 meeting.