Paso Robles district could close this elementary school. Here’s what you need to know
La versión en español de este informe de noticias está disponible aquí.
The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees could close an elementary school known for its dual immersion program to cut costs and adjust to stagnant enrollment.
Out of six elementary schools, an advisory committee chose Georgia Brown Elementary School as the campus that the north San Luis Obispo County district should shut down.
In addition to directing Paso Robles trustees to shutter the school, the committee plans to advise the board to dispose of two surplus property sites.
Though the 11-member committee acknowledged the emotional tribulations that come with closing an elementary school, it said its decision was based solely on economics.
Georgia Brown, a transitional kindergarten through fifth-grade school, serves as the district’s only home to a dual immersion Spanish language magnet program. It aims to teach students to be bilingual in Spanish and English by the time they graduate fifth grade.
The program is a massive draw for parents, with some commuting across Paso Robles to bring their kids to Georgia Brown.
Some advisory committee members and community advocates expressed concerns about Paso Robles Joint Unified choosing Georgia Brown as the campus to close — saying that it showed a spotlight on the district’s convoluted process and the lack of diversity among committee members.
“The proper information to my Hispanic community has not been given,” Yessenia Echevarria, founder of Mujeres de Acción and a co-founder of Paso People’s Action, said at a recent committee meeting. “I don’t think something as important as the closure of an elementary school would be left without having a proper discussion, a proper opportunity for Hispanic families to be a part of (the process).”
The advisory committee will present its recommendations to trustees at the Paso Robles board’s next meeting on Tuesday. From there, the board will further deliberate closing an elementary school, which likely will not happen until the 2022-2023 school year, according to district officials.
“My students deserve beautiful classrooms,” Georgia Brown Principal Celia Moses told The Tribune. “What comes will come and, in the end, it’s not just about the building.”
Paso Robles district considers closing elementary school campus
District officials said that the Paso Robles district can’t afford to pay nearly $700,000 to operate an elementary school with an enrollment that doesn’t meet capacity. The district has faced financial hardship over the past few years due to a negligent administration, coupled with the expenses of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
In May 2020, the district’s school board appointed 11 members to a 7-11 advisory committee to analyze closing a school campus before the board makes a final decision, as mandated by state law. Such committees can have as few as seven members, thus the name.
The advisory committee was tasked with two main priorities: Figure out what to do with two of the district’s parcels of vacant land and decide which elementary school campus the district should close.
Landing on Georgia Brown as the school to close came after the committee looked at each school’s age, condition, enrollment, capacity, location and program.
Georgia Brown, the committee found, was the oldest campus with the highest costs for needed repairs and no room to increase capacity.
Located just off Highway 101 at 36th and Oak streets, the campus’s first buildings were erected in 1948, expanded through the mid-1950s and again in the late 1990s or early 2000s, according to the district.
Cracked pavement, unusable playgrounds, tiny offices and an inadequate parking lot are among the issues facing the aging campus on the west side of Paso Robles. The cafeteria is so small it can’t fit even a third of the school’s population for lunch.
Teachers at Georgia Brown talk of sewage problems and doing their best to run neat classrooms in aging portable buildings that were never meant to be used for school.
“The buildings here just cannot accommodate us,” said Michele Tucker, a fourth-grade teacher at Georgia Brown. “We just don’t have the time to wait for the Measure M funds.”
In 2016, voters approved $95 million in bond funds to be spread across nine schools and the aquatic complex in the district. Of that, about $13.85 million was set aside for Georgia Brown.
The Measure M funds were supposed to pay for 10 new classrooms, a cafeteria upgrade and major modernization of the campus, among other things. But none of that has happened yet, even though construction was originally scheduled to begin in June 2020.
Even so, Georgia Brown’s campus has character. Several colorful murals painted by students and parents stand out along the exterior walls of the buildings, and painted squares with student self-portraits or creative designs line the campus pillars and small walls around the main playground area.
Classrooms are filled to the brink with previous class projects dating back decades, and students walk through the same halls their parents did when they were in elementary school.
“It would be really sad to see something that’s been here for so long close,” said Jose Holguin, whose daughter, Italy Ponce, is in kindergarten at the school.
Holguin said he attended Georgia Brown when he was a kid, adding that it’s a special place for him and his daughter.
“We wake up every day and there are challenges to getting her here” in terms of transportation, he said. “But we make it work because this is the best place for her. It would make things a little more difficult if we had to go to another school.”
Dual immersion program a huge draw for Georgia Brown
Georgia Brown is nearly bursting at the seams: 636 students are enrolled with a capacity to fit 690. It’s the only elementary school in the Paso Robles district that comes close to filling its classrooms to capacity, according to the district.
Other schools have room to expand by at least a hundred kids in some cases.
The main reason for this is Georgia Brown’s unique dual immersion program.
From kindergarten through third grade, students are taught 90% in Spanish, and 10% in English. Starting in fourth grade, instruction switches to a 50-50 split in each language.
“Kids are like sponges,” Moses said. “Our goal is to have them be bilingual by the time they graduate.”
The bilingual program translates to a diverse community at the school, Moses said.
“We have everyone from the owners of the vineyards, to those who pick the grapes who attend Georgia Brown,” Moses said.
About 75% of the students at Georgia Brown are Hispanic and about 21% are white, according to the most recent data provided by the Paso Robles district. It also has the second-highest number of homeless students — just behind Bauer-Speck Elementary School — and the highest number of students on free or reduced meals when compared to other elementary schools in the district.
Moses said it’s one of the few places where she doesn’t get asked a million questions by kids about her accent. Kids at Georgia Brown are accepting, she explained.
“We have these pillars of tolerance, respect, safety and generosity at Georgia Brown, and the students here really embrace them,” she said.
Janeth Lopez said that she drives her son, who is in kindergarten, to school because they recently moved away from the area.
“I feel like this school is important for Paso Robles because it’s bilingual,” Lopez told The Tribune in Spanish. “It’s something that’s helping a lot of kids’ futures. That’s why I’m bringing my son here.”
If Georgia Brown closes, district officials assured the 7-11 advisory committee that the dual immersion program would be relocated to another elementary school in the district.
But not all parents of Georgia Brown students drive their kids to the school. Those living in the surrounding neighborhoods say they’ve been lucky to live near the dual immersion program.
“Sometimes I don’t have a car. Sometimes I do,” Maria Gonzales told The Tribune in Spanish.
She has a son in first grade at Georgia Brown, and twin sons who plan to attend the school next year. “I fought for this school,” she said. “I live close. ... It would just complicate things because of transportation.”
Moses said transportation worries posed by parents is “where my job comes in.”
“I’ll advocate for transportation for those who need it,” she said. “I think we could get it done, and I always put my students first — whatever they need, I’ll try to get it for them.”
During the 2019-2020 school year, before the district discontinued most school bus services for students to save costs, about 17% of students at Georgia Brown took buses to school, according to the district.
Should Georgia Brown close, Bauer-Speck Elementary School would be the only campus on the west side of Highway 101.
“My concern has been that this committee has not taken (into account) the stakeholders of the most vital part of this decision: the parents of the west side,” said Terri Pearl, a teacher at Bauer-Speck Elementary who has been with the district for 31 years.
“How will they get to award assemblies? How will they get to PTA meetings?” Pearl asked.
Critics, advisory committee say process was not inclusive
The Paso Robles school board appointed the members of the 7-11 advisory committee after asking the community for volunteers.
In the end, 11 people were selected who supposedly reflected “the ethnic, age group and socioeconomic composition of the district,” as mandated by state law.
But committee advisors and community members raised concerns regarding the district’s adherence to the law.
“We don’t represent the ethnic or socioeconomic composition of this district,” committee member Rita Koski said at a Jan. 20 committee meeting.
Committee member Michael Rivera said he disagrees with Koski, arguing that the committee does, in fact, line up with the ethnic composition of the district.
About 55% of the Paso Robles school district’s students are Hispanic or Latino, and about 39% are white, according to the California Department of Education. Additionally, about 45% of the students in the district are eligible for the free or reduced lunch program.
Only one member of the committee, Rivera, is Hispanic. He’s a member of Californians for Population Stabilization, an organization designated as an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2019.
Out of its past six board meetings, the district provided Spanish translation or interpretation services to the community only once.
“Unfortunately, I think it’s a little bit too late,” Pearl said.
The Paso Robles school board will hear the 7-11 committee’s recommendation at Tuesday’s board meeting, but will not take an action on it until it has done further research on the possible school closure, according to district officials.
This story was originally published January 25, 2021 at 10:27 AM.
