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Committee recommends closing Moiola

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A committee assembled by the Fountain Valley School District has recommended Fred Moiola K-8 School for closure after the coming school year.

The School Boundaries & Closure Committee, which consists of parents, school officials and community members, voted Aug. 16 to recommend closing Moiola to the district’s board of trustees. Stephen McMahon, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, said the group would issue a written report to the board in September or October.

The board, he said, would likely hold a public hearing on closing Moiola and make a final decision by early next year.

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“It’s a difficult decision to think about closing a school and the impact on students and staff and, really, the neighborhood in general,” McMahon said. “It’s a very difficult decision. But we tried to go about it in a logical way where we would determine what the criteria were and evaluate each of those criteria.”

The committee used eight criteria, including size, current enrollment and proximity to the closest school, to determine which campus to recommend closing. Moiola, the district’s only kindergarten-through-eighth-grade site, met the most criteria.

McMahon said he had gotten no feedback since the vote from Moiola parents, but had visited the school more than once during the review process.

“We know they’re very, very concerned about it, as any community would be,” he said.

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