Following community backlash, Sacramento City Unified School District trustees decided to shelve a controversial proposal involving Sacramento Charter and West Campus high schools, as well as halt the closure and consolidation of five elementary schools.

The move stunned the 350 people who came to Thursday night's school board meeting to advocate for their schools. In deciding to change directions, board members Patrick Kennedy and Jeff Cuneo and Superintendent Jonathan Raymond each said the district did not do a good enough job of working with affected communities.

"Putting solutions on the table and asking your community to get there is the wrong way to go," Cuneo said.

District trustees could have voted as early as next week on proposals to close A.M. Winn, Collis P. Huntington and Freeport elementary schools and consolidate Edward Kemble and Cesar Chavez elementary schools.

Raymond said he "goofed" on his proposal to consolidate Edward Kemble and Cesar Chavez and that the district will better communicate with communities in the future.

"We imposed a solution and dropped it on them like a brick," Raymond said. "I've learned a lot from this."

The district anticipated $875,000 in savings from the closure and consolidation of the five elementary schools.

"I'm so happy, I'm in tears," said Angela Hopkins, a staff member at A.M. Winn Elementary School, one of the campuses proposed for closure.

Angie Stevens, grandparent of a student at C.P. Huntington, said she worries that the issue of closing schools might return in the in the future.

Sacramento City Teachers Association President Scott Smith questioned how the cash-strapped school district can continue to delay closing under-enrolled schools.

In district surveys, parents, teachers and staff have indicated that the No. 1 option for solving the budget deficit is to close under-enrolled schools.

Smith said people always say that until it's their school.

"If not now, when?" Smith asked.

The district last closed schools in 2009, three months prior to Raymond taking the helm. Raymond said the district may have to cut $12 million in midyear trigger cuts, despite having cut $177 million from its budget over the past decade.

Students from West Campus and Sacramento Charter High staged a rally in front of the district office before the board meeting to protest a proposal that called for the schools to swap campuses or co-locate at Sacramento High.

"I don't know why they would propose that when neither school wants it," said Demetrius Watts, a junior at Sacramento Charter High, who vocally led the rally in chants of "Don't mess with success."

Kennedy backpedaled Thursday on his request to have co-location and campus swap proposals explored, saying the community clearly did not like the idea.

"That set off a firestorm," Kennedy told the audience. "Perhaps, it's my fault. I'll take that. What I've learned in listening to the community was that we are going about it wrong."

Kennedy said he is still concerned that Sacramento Charter High is not fully utilizing their facilities, but that he should not have tried to include West Campus in the solution.

Proposals of swapping or co-locating West Campus and Sacramento Charter High have been floated since 2003, when St. HOPE took over the failing Sacramento High School. Those plans have been supported and pushed by the district's teachers union and a group of parents in east Sacramento who oppose the charter and want a comprehensive high school for their neighborhood.

Ed Manansala of St. HOPE, which operates Sacramento Charter High, was relieved to see the co-location and campus swapping proposals tabled, but said he would like to see the board take it a step further.

"We want to see the academic success acknowledged and see a longterm commitment to St. HOPE on the Sac High campus."

Currently, the district and St. HOPE have an annual lease, which Manansala said creates instability each year as discussions of moving the school resurface. He said that instability in addition to the most recent uproar have hurt enrollment.

"When eighth-grade students and parents are looking at schools and there is any sense of instability, parents are less inclined to choose your school," Manansala said.

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