Parents speak out on potential closures, cuts and more at Auburn Union School District Town Hall

On the precipice of school closures and cuts, the Auburn Union School District hosted a Town Hall meeting Thursday night where parents shared their feelings regarding a number of issues facing the district, including school closures, consolidations, conditions at EV Cain and potentially moving teachers mid-year to help address staffing at the middle school. The district is preparing for its second year of deep cuts after the Placer County Office of Education required the district define cuts in a Fiscal Recovery Plan last year. The Fiscal Recovery Plan addressed the district's $3 million budget shortfall, spreading the cuts over two school years. The Fiscal Recovery Plan outlined that the district would have to close two school sites starting next year. The district's plan declared Alta Vista Charter School and another school would close and consolidate onto one of the district's remaining three sites. The district formed the Fiscal Recovery Implementation Planning (FRIP) committee to make a recommendation to the board of trustees on the best way to implement the school closure/consolidation. The now 16-person committee has met four times since April and began with a focus on background knowledge about the district budget, facilities and enrollment data. According to district officials, the option which had the highest prioritization by FRIP members was to close Rock Creek Elementary, send those students to Auburn Elementary and place the Alta Vista Charter program on the Skyridge Elementary campus. FRIP committee considers options Parents arrived at Alta Vista Community Charter School for the Town Hall to fight for their campus. Rock Creek students and families fought back tears as they expressed how detrimental it would be to close their school. "There are many options for Rock Creek," one parent said, using a translator. "Think about the children who walk to school. Think about the people working in these places for many years. I don't want our school to be selected because it's a mainly Latino school." According to worksheets that came out of the FRIP committee's exercise on prioritization of options, moving Rock Creek onto Auburn Elementary had more support by one or two votes. Rock Creek and Auburn Elementary have similar enrollment, and the age of the facilities and size of the campus was taken into consideration, said Heather Leslie, AUSD Chief Business Officer who helped facilitate the FRIP meetings. "The classrooms (at Rock Creek) are at times undersized and it's only a 3-acre campus," Leslie said. "The school has experienced flooding, roof leaks and the multi is smaller, parking is smaller and it is more of a traffic hazard. It will be harder to bring pieces of the campus up to code. Auburn Elementary has its own issues that need to be addressed, but it is definitely set up and designed to handle many more students than the Rock Creek campus is." Parents questioned why there wasn't more discussion about moving the district to an all TK-8 program, as opposed to having a middle school campus. Superintendent Amber Lee Alva said, "Everything is still on the table." During the FRIP committee's October meeting, the members preformed a prioritization exercise which considered seven options, including: ·&emsp;Rock Creek to Auburn Elementary, ·&emsp;Alta Vista to EV Cain (shared campus), ·&emsp;Consolidate one site and make remaining sites TK-8, ·&emsp;Auburn Elementary to Rock Creek, ·&emsp;Alta Vista to Skyridge Elementary (shared campus), ·&emsp;TK-8 all schools with Alta Vista moving to a campus and Rock Creek preschool moving to the district office site, ·&emsp;Sixth-grade back to TK-6 on all campuses; make EV Cain seventh and eighth grades and share its campus with Alta Vista. The AUSD Board of Trustees will make the final decision on which school will close and consolidate, but the FRIP committee will make a recommendation based on its discussions and deep dive into the district budget, enrollment and facilities. "We have to take into consideration that we may not have a full agreement on everything, but we need to make sure that we're speaking to the majority of the constituents that were selected for this committee," Leslie said. Safety at EV Cain One grandparent in the district brought up concerns she had regarding the safety of students at EV Cain. "I'm hearing the children are very scared of being there," the grandparent said. "They are identifying hiding places." Lee Alva said she brought in a new principal, Christine Mabery, to help turn the school around. "Middle school's tough, and middle school post pandemic has been especially hard," Lee Alva said, adding that post-COVID laws made it so administration cannot suspend students for being willfully defiant. Mabery, who has served as principal for three months, said she couldn't comment to what's happened in the past but she's confident she's seeing a shift at EV Cain. "I will tell you today that we aren't the same campus we were," Mabery said. "Sustained change takes three to five years to actually progress." Skyridge teacher Brent Hood, one of the teachers being defended against a mid-year transfer, spoke up at the end of the meeting in defense of EV Cain students. He said he disagreed with the statement that middle schools are middle schools. "It's not true. Every child at every age is good, period," he said. "The reason that the behaviors, the insane disrespect and violence and things that I know of firsthand that are going on there ... are cultural. They don't need to exist and we absolutely cannot allow kids to continue to go to schools in our town and not feel safe." Mid-year teacher shuffle Parents also attended the Town Hall to voice their support for Hood, as he was one teacher who was told last week he would be part of an involuntary transfer mid-year. Hood, in an interview with the Auburn Journal, said he was told he would need to meet last week with the superintendent. He said he didn't know what the meeting was about. Hood said somehow the parents of his students found out and were texting Hood asking what was going on before he even had his meeting with Lee Alva. After a student approached him on the playground later that week and said, "I heard they were getting rid of you," Hood said he felt the need to address this with his students. "My kids were upset and anxious, and I have kids who will not react well to this," Hood said. Hood said in his meeting with Lee Alva he was threatened with insubordination and was accused of telling the parents about his potential involuntary transfer. "I don't matter anymore," Hood said. "I have never seen such a dysfunctional, negative environment. For all their talk about money, that district office never once talked about cutting any of their staff. There are way too many people in the admin office. It is disgusting." While supporting Hood, parents echoed his sentiments that teachers are not supported in the district. "Quite frankly, our teachers don't feel supported," said Jackie Belau, who has a son in Hood's fourth-fifth combo class at Skyridge. "This information is from several teachers at several schools throughout the district I've talked to. Three out of the four teachers that my son has had since kindergarten have left the district." Belau went on to say good schools happen when the teachers are supported, because that care trickles down to the students. "You said that the priority was our children's social and emotional health," Belau said to the district officials. "Taking out teachers in the middle of the year is not supporting our children's social and emotional health." Timeline for decisions and feedback Going into the Town Hall meeting, it looked like the district was getting close to making a decision regarding its school closure budget cuts. According to district officials, the FRIP committee was scheduled to meet Nov. 16 to decide upon a recommendation, and a special board meeting was scheduled for Dec. 5 - ahead of any newly elected board members' terms - to deliver their report to the board. Now, the timeline may be revised, as a FRIP committee member has asked for more time to consider additional information. One committee member requested the item be addressed at the next board of trustees meeting Wednesday, Nov. 9. Allison Reagle, who serves on the FRIP committee, explained its request, saying, "We asked for a second timeline because we didn't feel that we were given enough time or enough information to make an educated decision. And there were certain things that we would like to see, like to visit, like to do before we then just make a rush decision." Ultimately, the final decision rests in the Board of Trustee's hands, but the committee's recommendation will be taken into account. Board President Michelle Sierra-Sammons said the district was working on the agenda, which wasn't published by the Journal's press deadline Friday, but does plan to address the requested longer timeline on Nov. 9. Lee Alva said much work has to happen between now and the beginning of the next school year before a school can close so they are leaning toward making a decision as soon as possible so the district can "thoughtfully prepare" teachers and staff. According to Sierra-Sammons, the board is scheduled to hear an update on the FRIP committee's process and prioritization to date. She also said the district will address the staff shortage and potential to move teachers to EV Cain mid-year, but she could not say whether the discussion would be in open or closed session due to personnel matters. The Nov. 9 board meeting is scheduled at 7 p.m. at EV Cain Middle School, 150 Palm Avenue. Those interested in making a public comment at the meeting can email the district by 3 p.m. the day of the meeting at public.comment@auburn.k12.ca.us. They can also attend the meeting in person and provide comment. The meeting will also be available via ZOOM. The next FRIP committee meeting is scheduled for Nov. 16 in the AUSD boardroom and is open to the public, but there is no public comment.