Clash Over School Nears Close

A debate between a museum fighting to keep its nature preserve and a school district desperate to expand may be resolved soon as part of a complicated proposal that also involves the city of Santa Ana.

The private, nonprofit Discovery Museum of Orange County agreed to let the Santa Ana Unified School District build the county’s first fundamental high school, focusing on science and technology, on 2.5 acres it owns next to the museum.

Separately, the Santa Ana City Council voted unanimously Monday to let the school district build soccer fields, a library, basketball courts and a theater on about 18 acres of city-owned Centennial Park, which also borders the museum. As part of the arrangement, the council required that the public must have access to the new sports fields and other facilities. The school district would lease the property from the city.

At the heart of the issue is the need for more classrooms in one of the state’s most crowded school districts versus the need for open space in one of the state’s most densely built cities, school and city officials agree.

Museum officials have maintained for two years that the 2.5-acre potential school site is part of a 10-acre nature center visited by thousands of schoolchildren every year. The conflict escalated earlier this year when school district officials threatened a lawsuit, called for a public letter-writing campaign and got an eviction notice to force the museum to give up the land, which the district owns and the museum leases for $1 a year.

Discovery Museum board member Tim Rush said he is optimistic about the tentative agreement.

“The museum board is hopeful that the district will work with us,” Rush said. “It was not the museum’s desire at all to end up in court.”

District officials say the school project would have minimal effect on the museum because it would be an expansion of an existing continuation school and would use land that is mostly an unused dirt lot.

Museum and school district officials declined to comment Tuesday on the financial terms of the land exchange until their respective boards reach a final agreement. As part of the deal, the district would give the museum about an acre of land from a nearby preschool to use for an entrance off Fairview Street.

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Museum vs. School

The Discovery Museum--which leases its 12 acres from the Santa Ana Unified School District--may have to give up some of its space because the district wants to build a new high school.