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.
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