Paso Robles school district moves Georgia Brown dual immersion program to new home
The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District’s Board of Trustees voted to relocate its dual immersion Spanish-English program to a school across town from the program’s current location during a meeting Tuesday evening.
The dual immersion program is currently housed at Georgia Brown Elementary School on the west side of Paso Robles.
In late January, the board voted to shutter the Georgia Brown campus. The decision on how to restructure the school district to accommodate for the closure was delayed until district staff studied the impacts of several options.
District staff analyzed moving the dual immersion program to either Daniel E. Lewis Middle School or George H. Flamson Middle School. Whichever school did not house the dual immersion program would become a junior high with 7th and 8th grades, and all elementary schools in the district would become kindergarten through 6th grade campuses.
The school board ended up voting 5-2 in favor of the district staff’s recommendation.
Beginning next school year, the dual immersion program will be housed at Daniel E. Lewis Middle School, meaning George H. Flamson Middle School will host the junior high. That latter campus is located on the east side of Paso Robles.
Costs, transportation concerns considered during board meeting
District analysis found that the rough, estimated cost to convert Lewis Middle School into a kindergarten through 8th grade campus and Flamson Middle School to a junior high would be about $9.7 million.
In the other hand, kindergarten through 8th grade renovations at Flamson Middle School and junior high renovations at Lewis Middle School would amount to about $27.6 million, the district’s analysis found.
Additionally, the school board voted to shift the district’s elementary school attendance boundaries to account for the shift in the dual immersion program. That’s because the dual immersion program makes Lewis Middle School a magnet school — where students from anywhere in town can enroll.
Trustees Kenny Enney and Joel Peterson voted against moving the dual immersion program to Lewis Middle School and changing the district’s attendance boundaries.
“I think this is going to be very disruptive to a lot of people unnecessarily,” Enney said of changing the boundaries during Tuesday’s meeting.
According to the district’s vote, some students living on the west side of Highway 101 will need to cross the highway to get to school at Kermit King Elementary School. Additionally, some students living on the east side of Highway 101 will need to cross the highway to get to school at Glen Speck Elementary School.
A large concern among board members was whether transportation would be available for students with disabilities with the new attendance boundaries.
District Superintendent Curt Dubost said Tuesday that he believed transportation will become available, even if “heaven and Earth” need to be moved.
The trustees who voted for the district’s recommendation said they based their decision on costs of renovations and campus layouts in terms of which can accommodate elementary school students.
“It’s been interesting in my house over the last three weeks because I have a Flamson alum and a current Lewis student and so I think they’re watching right now rooting for one or the other,” said trustee Jim Cogan. “I do think that having walked both campuses, having been on both campuses; as a parent, Lewis is probably the better site for the the dual immersion program.”
