As far as I’m concerned, there is something seriously wrong with the Ocean Beach School District. I say that as a resident and taxpayer here for 35 years. And I say that as a retired teacher with 23 of my 39 teaching years in the OBSD.
During those 23 years, I taught in every facility in the District except for the old high school. Like everyone else I watched the struggle with enrollment projections year after year. Like everyone else, I endured the flexible boundary between Ocean Park and Long Beach schools year after year. Will the cutoff be at Cranberry Road this year? Or will it be at Pioneer?
Meanwhile, citizens’ committee after citizens’ committee met to study the problems with aging facilities which everyone knew were inadequate for 21st century education. Eventually, a plan was developed for a large centralized school. “No,” said peninsula residents. “We want our community schools. If it costs more, we’ll pay it.”
More committee meetings. Input from professionals. What configurations would work, given our student population? Oh, and by the way – “We will be losing enrollment from now on. It will not go up,” we were told.
So, a new plan was developed. Ocean Park and Long Beach schools would be remodeled for use by K-5 students. Hilltop would be remodeled for students in grades 6 to 9. The high school would house the tenth, eleventh and twelth graders. Besides enabling us to keep our community schools, those were said to be the best groupings of students for effective education. We voted on that plan and we passed it.
It took a long time but no sooner were we ready put the plan into effect than it was decided to close the high school and jam the senior high school students plus the seventh and eighth graders into Hilltop. Never mind that the hallways and lockers at Hilltop are middle school student sized, not high school student sized and that everything felt crowded from Day One.
Never mind, either, that there is no shop at Hilltop – shop students and teacher would have to walk over to the old high school for their classes. And especially never mind that the new Hilltop gym was not built to regulation size requirements for secondary schools – games would still need to be played at the old high school.
I don’t know when we will have finally paid off the remodels. The District says we are broke, anyway. No change there – it’s a perennial problem, even without an economic turn-down. What is new is that we are now being committed to a $132,000 portable at Long Beach that, if I’ve read the article in Wednesday’s Chinook Observer correctly, will become a permanent part of that campus. (As in it’s needed for five to six years and the County says if it’s there more than three it can’t be moved. It becomes a permanent portable? Isn’t that an oxymoron?)
And, even worse, there apparently was a choice: change the boundary again between Ocean Park and Long Beach schools. But, according to the paper, OBSD board members were looking for a solution that would be least disruptive to students and least upsetting to parents. Perhaps they should have also considered a solution that would be least disruptive to education.
I taught in a Long Beach Portable for the first two years I was in the district. I had come from an ‘old’ (1950s) school in California and I felt that my teaching environment had suddenly regressed by twenty years when I assigned to that portable – to say nothing of the fact that students and teachers who were relegated to the portable never felt truly a part of the main school population.
No doubt I’m being unreasonable, but I think we should go back to square one – K-5s in Long Beach and Ocean Park, 6-9s at Hilltop and 10-12s at the high school. Long ago, in the dark ages, when I was first teaching, one of the mantras in education was Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan. I can’t figure out which part of that the Ocean Beach School District seems unable to do…
Thanks for clarifying the history of this issue. I wasn’t around for all of those debates and decisions and always wondered how the current system came to be. It does seem a shame that the old/new high school is empty when there is overcrowding in the new/old high school. Hmmm maybe those millions left by Verna Oller could really help the kids?
Betsy, I think you’ve hit upon the crux of the problem — it has to do with institutional memory which, in this case, is probably very slim. Here’s a quote from my book, “Ocean Park School, The first Seven Decades”: “From the time that the small school districts of the peninsula consolidated in 1968 until June of 1980, three superintendents oversaw the afairs of the district. During the 1980s, however, the district averaged a new superintendent per year. Each brought a distinctive management style…” I think there were five superintendents in the 1990s and I don’t know how many since then… And who knows how much turnover there has been on the School Board? If the pundits are correct and the people at the top set the trend, it’s probably no wonder we waffle all over the place and no one has a clear idea of where we are headed.
Wish you had been on the recent committees:-)
OMG Sydney…I felt the same way when I read the article. I realize that maintenance has never been the strong suit at OBSD…and I understand that the “old” ( but newer) high school at Black Lake is in terrible condition…but this solution just cannot be the best of the options. I see no problem with moving the line for the K-6 students currently housed at OP and LB.
And I absolutely agree that perhaps educational reasons should be the foundation for the decisions. In addition…being in a portable with students and NO restrooms…and all the rain and field to navigate for the relief of natural bodily needs-!! How can this go on and on and on no matter whom is in charge…I just don’t understand.