Despite fervent public opposition, Galt Joint Union Elementary School District board members Wednesday night approved a major reorganization that includes closing Fairsite Elementary.
Motivated by declining enrollment, school site inequities, a budget shortfall and achievement gaps at Fairsite and at Greer Middle School, Superintendent Karen Schauer recommended the two-year reorganization.
Before the vote, a parade of parents and teachers from a crowd of 300 pleaded for trustees to reconsider. Their unanimous vote was greeted with boos and hisses.
The plan, which affects every district school, puts all seventh- and eighth-graders at McCaffrey Middle, swelling its ranks to 1,000.
Greer Middle, as well as River Oaks, Marengo Ranch and Lake Canyon elementaries, will become kindergarten through sixth-grade schools.
Many teachers spoke against returning sixth-graders who've been in middle schools to elementaries.
The plan also makes Fairsite a pre-K, kindergarten and first-grade school in 2008-09, before it closes the following year, a move questioned by speakers who said it would put the district's youngest students at an unsafe, traffic-heavy site.
Fairsite and Greer have been in "program improvement," according to the federal No Child Left Behind program, for several years. And despite recent gains, they've missed achievement targets for too many years.
The law requires the schools to close or undergo dramatic changes to stay open.
"This plan doesn't address student achievement, it just changes the place" where struggling children attend school, said Greer teacher Angela Weber.
Many parents and teachers also said the plan was made too quickly, with little public input.
Schauer said the moves would help close the achievement gap and defended the pace of the reorganization as "responsible."
The changes will save the district $425,000 annually, beginning in 2009-10. The savings, generated by reduced staffing and operational costs, will soften, if only a bit, the coming 2008-09 budget crunch.
In addition to a 2.4 percent cut in state funding, the district faces an additional loss of $775,000 because of declining enrollment.
Call The Bee's Melissa Nix, (916) 478-2653.
