Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Sweetwater school district resolves boundary issue

Eight-month fight concludes in victory for students

Sweetwater Union High School District trustees voted unanimously to allow students to choose their preferred campus.
Sweetwater Union High School District trustees voted unanimously to allow students to choose their preferred campus.

For years, schools in the Sweetwater Union High School District have either been severely impacted or under-enrolled. To address the issue, the district held five "Long Range Facility Master Plan" meetings in 2015 and invited district parents to give input on facility repairs and attendance boundaries.

By January 2016, trustees approved new boundaries for the entire district. Within a month, parents living in the eastern Chula Vista neighborhoods of San Miguel Ranch, Eastlake Shores, Eastlake Hills, and St. Claire received letters from the district saying their children would no longer be able to attend Eastlake Middle School or Eastlake High School. Instead, they would attend Bonita Vista Middle or Bonita Vista High School.

Outrage ensued. Parents said they bought homes in these communities so their children could attend Eastlake Middle School or Eastlake High School. Residents with children still enrolled in the Chula Vista Elementary School District said they never received information concerning the meetings and were not engaged in the decision-making process.

Victor Ibarra, a realtor, resident of Chula Vista, and father of three, contacted the Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors and the San Diego Association of Realtors, which wrote letters to the district expressing concern that property values would go down.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“We paid Mello Roos taxes to build these schools," said Ibarra. "Our group doesn’t have anything against Bonita. Overall, academic-wise they’re a good school, but it’s just an older school. Their facilities are more run-down. I hate to say it, but they are. Eastlake is a good performing school academically and the installations are a little bit better overall. Plus, we paid. Our communities paid to build those schools, so to take that away from us, we felt we were disenfranchised.”

All four schools have an 8 rating at GreatSchools.org, but U.S. News SUHSD High School Rankings for 2016 placed Eastlake High School at #209 and Bonita Vista High School at #366. What’s more, Eastlake High (built 1992) and Eastlake Middle (2003) are significantly newer buildings than Bonita Vista High (1966) and Bonita Vista Middle (1968).

Residents gathered signatures for online petitions. The homeowners' associations sent letters of protest to the district.

Audra Lacey, posted on Nexdoor.com (where residents conducted much of their community organizing work) March 15th that district representatives came to Eastlake Elementary and said "if we live in a CFD/mello-roos area, then we will have priority consideration to transfer into [Eastlake Middle] AND [Eastlake High] with 99% certainty of getting in."

However, when resident Chris Gavino filled out the transfer paperwork for his eighth-grader, he received a rejection letter in the mail.

Residents then contacted trustee Frank Tarantino for help. He attended community meetings on October 14th at Eastlake Elementary and October 17th at Liberty Elementary. There, parents were assured the issue of attendance boundaries would be re-opened as an agenda item.

But concerns continued. In an email, Chris Gavino wrote, “From board meetings, held in JUL/AUG which led to the recent 2% increase in Mello Roos there maybe at least one Board member voting 'No,' based on her attitude towards the use of CFD communities to fund not only CFD-schools, but the whole district.”

On October 24th residents attended the SUHSD Board Meeting at Hilltop High School, still unsure how trustees would vote.

During public comments, Chris Gavino — with his daughter now a freshman at Eastlake High — said, “Myself and my wife had to wipe tears away from our daughter when the initial decision came out, when she found out in February. And likewise when we received the initial rejection when we filled out inter-district transfer paperwork. So I hope your decision today spares any future parents of any emotional distress that we went through over this past year.”

Then, the the district board unanimously voted for the four neighborhoods to become optional; students will now be able to choose either school. The audience applauded once the motion passed.

“I think in the past, maybe the concerns of the community would have fallen on deaf ears, but we are no longer that organization," said Tarantino. "We are an organization that goes above and beyond to outreach to the community.”

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

A poem for March by Joseph O’Brien

“March’s Lovely Asymptotes”
Next Article

Hip-hop artist Don Elway makes movies for his music

Not Ordinary EP tells a story of life on the streets
Sweetwater Union High School District trustees voted unanimously to allow students to choose their preferred campus.
Sweetwater Union High School District trustees voted unanimously to allow students to choose their preferred campus.

For years, schools in the Sweetwater Union High School District have either been severely impacted or under-enrolled. To address the issue, the district held five "Long Range Facility Master Plan" meetings in 2015 and invited district parents to give input on facility repairs and attendance boundaries.

By January 2016, trustees approved new boundaries for the entire district. Within a month, parents living in the eastern Chula Vista neighborhoods of San Miguel Ranch, Eastlake Shores, Eastlake Hills, and St. Claire received letters from the district saying their children would no longer be able to attend Eastlake Middle School or Eastlake High School. Instead, they would attend Bonita Vista Middle or Bonita Vista High School.

Outrage ensued. Parents said they bought homes in these communities so their children could attend Eastlake Middle School or Eastlake High School. Residents with children still enrolled in the Chula Vista Elementary School District said they never received information concerning the meetings and were not engaged in the decision-making process.

Victor Ibarra, a realtor, resident of Chula Vista, and father of three, contacted the Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors and the San Diego Association of Realtors, which wrote letters to the district expressing concern that property values would go down.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“We paid Mello Roos taxes to build these schools," said Ibarra. "Our group doesn’t have anything against Bonita. Overall, academic-wise they’re a good school, but it’s just an older school. Their facilities are more run-down. I hate to say it, but they are. Eastlake is a good performing school academically and the installations are a little bit better overall. Plus, we paid. Our communities paid to build those schools, so to take that away from us, we felt we were disenfranchised.”

All four schools have an 8 rating at GreatSchools.org, but U.S. News SUHSD High School Rankings for 2016 placed Eastlake High School at #209 and Bonita Vista High School at #366. What’s more, Eastlake High (built 1992) and Eastlake Middle (2003) are significantly newer buildings than Bonita Vista High (1966) and Bonita Vista Middle (1968).

Residents gathered signatures for online petitions. The homeowners' associations sent letters of protest to the district.

Audra Lacey, posted on Nexdoor.com (where residents conducted much of their community organizing work) March 15th that district representatives came to Eastlake Elementary and said "if we live in a CFD/mello-roos area, then we will have priority consideration to transfer into [Eastlake Middle] AND [Eastlake High] with 99% certainty of getting in."

However, when resident Chris Gavino filled out the transfer paperwork for his eighth-grader, he received a rejection letter in the mail.

Residents then contacted trustee Frank Tarantino for help. He attended community meetings on October 14th at Eastlake Elementary and October 17th at Liberty Elementary. There, parents were assured the issue of attendance boundaries would be re-opened as an agenda item.

But concerns continued. In an email, Chris Gavino wrote, “From board meetings, held in JUL/AUG which led to the recent 2% increase in Mello Roos there maybe at least one Board member voting 'No,' based on her attitude towards the use of CFD communities to fund not only CFD-schools, but the whole district.”

On October 24th residents attended the SUHSD Board Meeting at Hilltop High School, still unsure how trustees would vote.

During public comments, Chris Gavino — with his daughter now a freshman at Eastlake High — said, “Myself and my wife had to wipe tears away from our daughter when the initial decision came out, when she found out in February. And likewise when we received the initial rejection when we filled out inter-district transfer paperwork. So I hope your decision today spares any future parents of any emotional distress that we went through over this past year.”

Then, the the district board unanimously voted for the four neighborhoods to become optional; students will now be able to choose either school. The audience applauded once the motion passed.

“I think in the past, maybe the concerns of the community would have fallen on deaf ears, but we are no longer that organization," said Tarantino. "We are an organization that goes above and beyond to outreach to the community.”

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Why Unified® Review: What To Expect Dropshipping (Positive & Negative)

Next Article

Pet pig perches in pocket

Escondido doula gets a taste of celebrity
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.