Letter to the Editor: School Closure Issue Needs Better Longterm Plan

In 2006, my family made a decision to sell our home of 13 years and move to San Bruno from San Mateo.

We liked the small schools and classroom size and the community as a whole and thought that would have a positive impact on our children's education and life skills.

Since we have moved to San Bruno, school closure has been a topic that has come up several times when talking with parents and neighbors. 

The school closure conversation started getting really hot last year. You know the situation is negative when your child in the third grade comes home and asks, "Is my school is gonna be there next year?” and “Why is my teacher getting fired. What did she do wrong?”

I'm sure I'm not the only parent who has heard this from his or her child.

This process has been going on for several years, and it is putting each school against each other and not allowing the community to discuss this issue as a whole.

I feel there is no parent or member of the community who would like to see any school close, and I think we need to find other options at this point.

If we can hold off one more year and give us a chance as a community to sit down and find a way to improve the school situation and bring back classroom reduction and keep all the schools open, I feel the school district and San Bruno as a community would be a better place.

It would be much better if we were able to come up with a longterm plan so the school closure issue and teacher layoffs would not be in the back of our minds at the end of each school year.

Maybe test scores will go up and students will not leave the district to go to other schools outside of San Bruno. And maybe each neighborhood would be able to keep their small school and their children close to home. 

As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. 

—Vince Carini 

Do you have a letter to the editor you want to submit about the San Bruno school closure talks? Just make sure it's not longer than 300 words and email it to Editor Martin Ricard at martin@patch.com.