Transfer Students, Day Care Still Undecided

The cancellation of a private day-care center’s lease on the grounds of Gordon H. Beatty Elementary School will be back on the agenda for discussion at the next Buena Park School District meeting, perhaps raising hopes for some parents.

And for parents of transfer students at the school, the status of their children remained unclear at Monday’s meeting and will go back on the agenda for another vote April 24 on whether exemptions will be allowed.

In an effort to make more room for incoming students, a facilities planning committee recently recommended the school would need to provide more classrooms. Four modular classrooms and a bathroom at the site are being used by the ABC Academic Preschool and Day-Care Center, which has been there since 1989.

Two weeks ago, a tense and divided school board voted to cancel the center’s contract, which would have expired in August 2001. The board also voted to send all transfer students back to their neighborhood schools.

At Monday’s meeting, Supt. Carol Riley said she has received calls from parents of transfer students who wanted to appeal the decision. One father said his fifth-grade son has been at Beatty since kindergarten and hoped his son would be able to finish his elementary school years at the same school. The parents of some transfer students work at the school.

Riley asked the board for direction and said she wanted to begin informing the parents.

One option discussed was to allow fifth-graders, and perhaps their siblings, to continue at the school uninterrupted.

Board members Lloyd G. Davis and Beth Swift, however, opposed any exceptions to the decision two weeks ago. They said another vote would be necessary to clarify the issue.

But Riley said she hoped to have the issue resolved Monday.

“I really just thought there would be some discussion and clarification,” Riley said Tuesday. “This is a very emotional issue, and it’s real difficult because it involves children.”

The talks at times turned angry, with one board member accusing another of neglecting his “fiduciary responsibilities.”

After the meeting, upset parents gathered to voice their opinions outside the district headquarters.

“It’s wrong. I’m sorry, but it’s wrong what they’re doing,” said Linda Lanning, whose daughter Katrina is a fifth-grader at the school. “They’re negatively impacting our kids. They are traumatizing our kids.”

The mother, who said she received an award from the same board last year for her volunteer work at the school, vowed she would scrub toilets to keep her daughter there.

“I think all the transfer students that are there now should stay,” Lanning said. “This is going to destroy her.”

Ana Cholo-Tipton can be reached at (714) 966-5890.