The meeting will discuss school boundaries and program location
PASO ROBLES—Paso Robles Joint Unified School District will be hosting two community discussions this week regarding school boundaries and dual immersion program location. The first discussion will be held Tuesday, Feb. 1, at 5:30 p.m. for English and 6:30 p.m. for Spanish at the Glen Speck Elementary Lunchroom on 2504 Spring Street.
The second discussion is set for Thursday, Feb. 3, at 5:30 p.m. for English and 6:30 p.m. for Spanish at the Georgia Brown Elementary Multi-purpose room on 535 36th Street.
On Saturday, Feb. 5, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., the District will be hosting a Board of Trustees Study Session at the District Office Board Room located at 800 Niblick Road. The study session will provide an opportunity for public comment.
Two options have been put forward by PRJUSD Staff, which will be discussed in the meetings. There is currently no option provided to close a school campus. However, it was previously understood that it was most likely the Georgia Brown campus would be closed due to the number of funds needed to repair the campus. Until recently, it was found there would be an option to keep the Georgia Brown campus open.
The Board has directed staff to focus on options to rebuild the current Georgia Brown site to accommodate its current enrollment of 636 students or rebuild it as a smaller neighborhood school with a capacity of around 350.
Option A – Smaller Neighborhood School
This smaller neighborhood school would be a state-supported Community School with a Wellness Center and substantial supplemental student support. In this scenario, the current Dual Immersion staff and students would move to the new Speck campus, expected to be completed by next December.
The new school has 19 regular classrooms and four kindergarten rooms for a projected capacity of 628. The current Speck staff and students would remain at the current temporary site until their new campus is completed at the current Georgia Brown site with perhaps ten regular and four kindergarten classrooms and a capacity of about 350 to 375 students.
The Dual Immersion/Georgia Brown campus would be a magnet school for the entire District and adjacent districts with approved inter-district transfers as it is currently. Speck at the current Georgia Brown site would likely then be the residential school for the entire west side attendance area with 101 as the dividing line.
OPTION B – Original Plan
This would be to stick to the original plan to move Speck staff and its 336 students to its new campus with approximately 628 seats next Winter Break as previously planned. The current Georgia Brown/Dual Immersion program with staff and students would then move to the temporary site currently used by Speck while a new campus to accommodate it is rebuilt at Geogria Brown.
PRJUSD Superintendent Curt Dubost provided an update on the attendance boundary and program location options.
No final decisions whatsoever have been made. We have had now over two years of studies and meetings, as best we could with COVID, on these questions as well as others to update our Facilities Master Plan. Brad Pawlowski and staff are preparing summaries of data and projections for the Board as well as answers to the concerns brought from staff and the community to be presented and discussed thoroughly at the three meetings referenced above and on the attached fliers. The kind of data we will present to the public and the Board will include a breakdown not only of enrollment numbers but where the kids actually live. For example, I find the following breakdown particularly illuminating:
You will note the current Speck enrollment numbers show a total of only 138 of the current 336 actually live in the current Speck attendance area. This does not surprise me as I live very close to that site. Also 92 of the current 642 at GB live in the Speck attendance area, and 225 of that number are residents of the GB attendance area.
