Save Rose Drive Elementary

Homeowners, parents, and residents in and around the Rose Drive Elementary School area are facing a huge potential problem: The PYLUSD School Board is considering closing down this very high-performing elementary school, dispersing its several hundred students, and replacing the student population with continuation high school students.

For families whose children attend Rose Drive, the closure of the school creates many problems entailing program accessibility, transportation, child care wait lists, and the like.

For homeowners and residents at large, ample research indicates that people are willing to pay a premium to live in high quality school attendance areas. Conversely, property value is decreased, often significantly, by undesirable school factors. There are crime, graffiti, and traffic issues that can be associated with this change, as well as the additional costs of more police presence being needed.

The School Board has 5.5 million dollars of bond money (the appropriate use of which is being investigated at present) with which to update the existing continuation high school. Without having even opened for bids, and lacking any substantial supporting facts or figures for this proposal, the Board claims this is not enough and they must instead move the campus to Rose Drive. They have summarily dismissed other options without any explanation.

This is not acceptable.