Countdown to Possible School Closure Begins Tuesday

The San Bruno Park School District committee tasked with discussing a possible school closure will be meeting for the last time Tuesday to make a recommendation that could potentially sway the school board's ultimate decision.

At the April 18 school board meeting, the schools trustees are expected to make a final decision about whether to close a school next year based on the committee's input.

But up until the last committee meeting, there have been a lot of questions about the process and about whether the district has been moving too fast with the school closure talks, especially since they only started a couple of months ago and the school year is almost over.

For Tuesday's meeting, the committee will be putting the final touches on the recommendation it is expected to make to the school board.

That recommendation will be based on a set of criteria that was ranked among the committee members, with each school's input. Nine criteria were used to develop a weight system that was modeled after a similar system used by the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Each criteria were weighed from least important to most important with a score of one representing that the criteria had the least amount of importance to considering a school be closed. A five meant it was very important for a considering a school closure.

At the last committee meeting, Crestmoor Elementary had the highest score, followed by Rollingwood, Portola and John Muir schools.

"The scores will be the basis for the draft of the committee report, which we will then be working through at our next meeting," Megan Connery, the chairwoman of the committee, said in an email.

The committee will also be reviewing the finalized version of the study put together by Total School Solutions. The district initially hired the firm to assess changing school boundaries once sixth graders move to Parkside Intermediate next year. But it quickly became a central point of contention because the study suggested closing a school. 

The meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the district office.