Support Is Strong in Yorba Linda for District Merger

Phyllis Coleman sighed and said, yes, it has been a long fight.

“I’ve lived in Yorba Linda for 24 years, and it’s been the big issue for our schools during all those 24 years,” she said. “Maybe longer. Maybe 30 years. But for as long as I can remember, we wanted a change.”

For Coleman and other Yorba Linda parents, the long-desired change for its tiny, 1,800-student elementary school system is now on the ballot. On Nov. 8, voters in Yorba Linda and Placentia will decide whether Yorba Linda Elementary School District should be merged into the neighboring 17,500-student Placentia Unified School District, which would mean more state funding for the added Yorba Linda children.

If a majority of those voting in both school districts approve, the merger is to take place in the summer of 1989, and Yorba Linda Elementary School District will go out of business--just as thousands of Yorba Linda residents have sought over the years.

So far, little opposition to the merger has surfaced. Support appears to come from a wide cross-section of Yorba Linda residents. Coleman is among the pro-merger leaders.

Curiously, Coleman is a Yorba Linda Elementary School District trustee. She and her fellow board members want Yorba Linda to go out of business, but not because they think it is a bad or poorly run district.

“We just want the best education we get for our children in Yorba Linda, and if we merge with a unified school district, like Placentia, there is more state funding available for each child.”

A quirk in California education law is that elementary school districts get lower funding per student than do unified districts. Unified districts are those that have kindergarten through 12th grade. Elementary districts stop at either the sixth or eighth grade.

According to Sharon McHolland, assistant superintendent of the Placentia Unified district, state funding for average daily attendance is $312.52 higher per student than in adjoining Yorba Linda Elementary district. Thus, the 1,800 students now in Yorba Linda Elementary School District would garner more than $560,000 in added state support if they all were in the Placentia district.

“We certainly can do a lot more for our children with more funding,” said Mary Ellen Blanton, superintendent of Yorba Linda Elementary School District. Like the board members of her district, Blanton has worked energetically in recent years to disband Yorba Linda Elementary and merge with Placentia Unified.

Ironically, Blanton is the only school employee who may lose a job if the merger is approved Nov. 8. And she has said repeatedly that she does not care. “The education of our students is the most important thing,” Blanton said.

Proponents of the merger most frequently mention higher funding per child as a major reason for seeking the change. But several other reasons are also cited by merger advocates:

- Only the western third of the incorporated city of Yorba Linda now is within the geographic boundaries of Yorba Linda Elementary School District. The eastern two-thirds of Yorba Linda--and the most rapidly growing part of the city--already is part of Placentia Unified.

- It is very hard to get united Yorba Linda community support for education because of residents’ confusion about what school district they live in.

- Yorba Linda Elementary is not only small but has also been declining in enrollment. By contrast, Placentia Unified has been growing in enrollment. Growth districts not only have more state funds, but they can also avoid painful situations such as having to close neighborhood schools.

- Because Placentia is larger and better funded, it has some education programs, such as elementary-grade music, that Yorba Linda cannot provide its students.

Isabelle Hlavac, a Placentia Unified school board member, and others say they know of no organized opposition to the proposed merger in either city or school district.

But Whit Cromwell, a former Yorba Linda city councilman who was the only person to speak against merger during a public hearing on the issue last spring, said Wednesday that while there may not be organized opposition, “I know there are some people out there who don’t want this.”

District’s Identity

Cromwell’s chief argument against merger is community identity. In the merged district, Yorba Linda students would comprise only 10% of the district’s total enrollment.

“Yorba Linda will be swallowed up by Placentia Unified,” Cromwell said. “I’m interested in the identity our Yorba Linda school district represents.” He said many children would be “confused” about their community identity.

Cromwell also contends that the Yorba Linda district already provides a good education, and that a merger “will not give us anything we don’t already have.” Moreover, he said, the district could provide all the educational programs that would be available in a merged district if it used its state money better.

The long struggle for a change in Yorba Linda’s education system originally focused on getting its own high school.

Eighth-grade graduates currently have no adjacent high school district to attend. Instead, they are assigned to Fullerton Joint Union High School District, which does not adjoin the city of Yorba Linda.

Land Sold

At one time, the Fullerton district had promised to build a high school in Yorba Linda. But as enrollment in Yorba Linda declined, the Fullerton district dropped the plan and sold the land intended for Yorba Linda High School.

“After the high school site land was sold, we knew we’d never get our own high school,” Coleman said.

For several years thereafter, Yorba Linda residents sought legislation to allow the district to secede from Fullerton Joint Union High School District. But the Fullerton district, which does not want to lose the Yorba Linda students or the state funding they represent, was able to block passage of that bill.

In 1987, however, Yorba Linda residents proposed a compromise bill that would allow merger of its elementary students into Placentia Unified while still requiring the high school students to go to Fullerton’s Troy High. Fullerton district officials reluctantly agreed to remain neutral on this bill, and it was passed last year. It is that law which allows the proposed merger issue to be placed on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Official Concerned

“We still have some reservations about the proposed merger,” said Ken Jones, acting superintendent of the Fullerton district. “We’re worried that later on, the Yorba Linda people will talk about sending their high school students to Placentia rather than to Troy High. Since about 900 students from Yorba Linda go to Troy High in our district, a loss of those students would cause us serious financial problems.”

But Coleman said the only goal of the Nov. 8 merger is to put the elementary students of Yorba Linda into the bigger, better-financed Placentia Unified. “We’re not seeking a change of the high school,” she said.

Both the Placentia and Yorba Linda school boards are putting out voter information about the proposed merger. With no apparent strong opposition, the pro-merger supporters say they are optimistic about approval by the voters.

But Coleman said she is taking nothing for granted, adding, “You never know what’s working against this underground.”