mailbag - Aug. 9, 2001

Your paper has been inattentive to the movement of Fountain Valley

(Elementary) School District to unify. Granted, you are the “Huntington

Beach Independent,” but this action would have serious negative

consequences to our Huntington Beach resident high school students,

families and homeowners. Let me share with you just two of those

consequences.

First, the unification would cause a tremendous number of layoffs of

newly hired teachers at Edison, Marina, Huntington and Ocean View high

schools. The current outstanding veteran teachers at Fountain Valley High

School will choose not to join the newly “unified” district, but, smartly

so, remain with the Huntington Beach Union High School District and

retain their rights and seniority by being placed at the remaining

schools, bumping the less senior.

The Huntington Beach Union High School District office, leased from

the Fountain Valley School District on Yorktown Avenue, could have to

relocate at considerable costs.

Moreover, in unifying along its boundaries and not its city

boundaries, Fountain Valley schools propose to take a large and important

sector of our city of Huntington Beach with it. This Huntington Beach

sector covers Adams Avenue north to Garfield Avenue and is bounded on the

west by Newland Street and the east by the river.

The children of this area of Huntington Beach -- since its development

as a farming community -- have always attended Fountain Valley elementary

schools, and then the Huntington Beach Union High School District.

This has always worked as a compatible and efficient system, and

parents have been pleased because in all these districts, we have been

blessed with good schools, good teachers and great kids.

But for whatever reason, Fountain Valley Supt. Mark Ecker has now

decided to try to unify along his district’s boundaries, not along his

city’s lines. When Ecker wants to build a kingdom that takes Huntington

Beach city homeowners into his proposed “Fountain Valley Unified,” he is

playing “52 pickup” with all the illogical boundaries of the neighboring

elementary districts.

The children and homeowners of this sector of Huntington Beach do not

share Ecker’s vision of “substantial community identity.” They identify

with Huntington Beach, and if Fountain Valley reorganizes, the residents

of this section will petition to join Huntington Beach City School

District, giving it the northeastern Huntington Beach city boundary, and

ensuring that their home high school is Huntington or Edison high school

(where the substantial numbers now choose to attend).

At its last two board meetings, the Huntington Beach City School

District has been discussing the concept of annexing this area in light

of Fountain Valley’s movement to unify, and thereby realigning this

sector of Huntington Beach schools.

The decision will ultimately belong to this section’s residents, as

well it should. But if their vote is only “yes” or “no” to unify, they

will likely be outvoted by those residents lying within the city of

Fountain Valley. These Huntington Beach homeowners deserve another

option, and those of us affected by the upset and expense that Fountain

Valley’s actions will cause our students deserve a say in the matter.

CATHY MCGOUGH

Huntington Beach

* Editor’s Note: Cathy McGough is a Huntington Beach City School

District trustee.