Push under way to save Santa Rosa's Doyle Park school

<p>More than 50 parents of Doyle Park Elementary School students filled cafeteria tables Monday and listed the reasons they want the Santa Rosa school district to consider saving their small campus.</p><p>“My son is safe here,” said Wendy West, mother of fourth-grader Weylin, 9.</p><p>“Kids don't get lost in a small school,” said Tarik Kanaana, whose son Omar also is 9 and in the fourth grade.</p><p>Declining enrollment and test scores led Santa Rosa school members to propose closing the kindergarten to sixth-grade school on Sonoma Avenue. Students would be divided among Brook Hill, Burbank and Proctor Terrace Elementary schools.</p><p>District officials said closing Doyle Park could save the school $411,000 if all students switch to schools within Santa Rosa.</p><p>Doyle Park Principal Kaesa Enemark called Monday's meeting to explain the proposal to parents and to ask them to speak at a school board meeting Wednesday at which the planned closure is to be discussed.</p><p>A teacher raised her hand and asked why the proposal wasn't available in Spanish. Fifty-seven percent of Doyle Park's 265 students are English-language learners.</p><p>Enemark said she'd try to get a copy translated before Wednesday.</p><p>“It's important for the board to see that parents who speak only Spanish can have opinions,” Enemark said.</p><p>Doyle Park is the only one of the district's elementary schools where test scores have declined overall since 1999, according to a school report.</p><p>Greg Houser, an instructional coach at the school, said more than 95 percent of students improved their reading and writing fluency between August and January tests.</p><p>“Nearly everyone has improved,” he said.</p><p>Lourdes Peralta of Healdsburg said her daughter, a kindergartner, was devastated when she brought home a flier alerting parents about the possible closure. The teachers are what Peralta would miss, she said in Spanish.</p><p>Kenneth Kilgore asked what will happen to the school if Doyle Park's students go elsewhere. </p><p>“Are the charter schools pushing for this?” said Kilgore, whose daughter is in fourth grade.</p><p>“That's a good, pointed question to ask the board,” Enemark said.</p><p>Kaitlyn Ellis, a nursing student at the Santa Rosa Junior College, said her son Cameron struggled at two previous schools in Sacramento and Santa Rosa. </p><p>“As soon as he came here the teacher picked up on everything with him,” Ellis said. “She got him on the right track. He was really flailing before.”</p><p>At the back of a cafeteria table, school board member Ron Kristof stood and introduced himself to the group.</p><p>“No decision has been made,” Kristof said.</p><p>Kristof said if Doyle Park is closed, the facilities likely would be used by several smaller charter schools, such as a French-American charter school for grades kindergarten to eighth.</p><p>Kristof said he came to encourage people to speak before the board and to let people know there would be a translator. </p><p>“I want you to feel comfortable,” he said.</p><p>The board is scheduled to review the proposal at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall. It also will hold a Jan. 30 town hall meeting at Herbert Slater Middle School. School board members are expected to vote on the proposal Feb. 8.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com.</p>