El Molino parents sue to halt school consolidation in west Sonoma County

A group of parents from Forestville and the greater El Molino High School community is suing the West Sonoma County Union High School District, in an attempt to block the pending consolidation with Analy High School in Sebastopol.

At the heart of the legal challenge are claims that the school district did not meet the level of review called for in the state’s bedrock environmental law when implementing a plan to merge El Molino and Analy High into one school on the Analy campus in the fall.

The 24-page complaint filed Thursday in Sonoma County Superior Court also highlights discrepancies in the fact-finding process district officials used to ground their decision to move forward with the merger.

“It’s sad, but it’s also a relief that we’re doing the right thing,” said Jessalee Mills, a Forestville resident and a leader of the group behind the suit, the Community Alliance for Responsible Education. “We’ve gotten to this point and we’ve established grounds to say, ’You’re violating the law.’“

The legal challenge represents an escalation in the standoff between El Molino families and the school district, even as district officials have taken first steps to implement the consolidation over the coming months. The lawsuit seeks to disrupt that momentum and send district officials back to the drawing board, including requiring a full environmental review before moving forward.

“The goal is to keep (El Molino) open this school year in the short term,” Mills said. “In the long term, it’s to potentially split away from the school district.”

Kelli Noe, president of the school district board of trustees, confirmed Friday afternoon that the district had been served with the complaint. Scott Lewis, the attorney representing the El Molino families suing the school district, said that a backlog in the court system had prevented the lawsuit from being certified until Friday.

“The district complied with all (California Environmental Quality Act) requirements,” Noe said in a text message. “We are disappointed that these individuals felt that they needed to do this, and we believe this lawsuit is both frivolous and not filed timely.”

Concerned and angry community members met with district leaders in private and spoke out through protests and public comments at board meetings throughout the past seven months of discussion about the disputed move. Officials began exploring consolidation in earnest in the fall as a remedy for the school district’s annual $1.1 million structural deficit, initially studying several scenarios that might achieve the savings needed.

The lawsuit takes aim at what it says are examples of officials improperly pursuing a categorical exemption from CEQA, to move the project forward quickly. The plaintiffs draw on discussions and presentations held in meetings over multiple years.

“Everything I say I can back up,” Lewis said. “We have every agenda, all the minutes, recordings and PowerPoint presentations to support what I’m telling you.”

Nov. 30 was the date of a key meeting, when the board gave conditional approval to a scenario that would move El Molino students to the Analy campus in Sebastopol and Laguna High School to the El Molino campus in Forestville. The school board also discussed moving the district administrative offices to the El Molino campus, though the lawsuit points out that the resolution the board approved makes no mention of that part of the project.

The consolidation scenario was pitched as a placeholder to satisfy budget shortfalls until the outcomes of two tax measures in the March 2 special election were known. Both would have funneled much-needed money to the school district.

But both came up short last month of the required two-thirds majority, and eight days later the school board relied on the Nov. 30 CEQA exemption to move its approved consolidation scenario forward.

But plaintiffs in the newly filed lawsuit say that process was flawed and based on incorrect information. Their lawsuit contends that the district relied on shifting information about key details of the merger, including campus capacity at Analy.

In 2018 and 2019, Superintendent Toni Beal reported Analy’s capacity at 1,350 students, the lawsuit alleges, while in the fall of 2020, district staff reported Analy’s capacity at 1,639 students. Capacities at El Molino and Laguna High School were also reported higher than in previous years, plaintiffs say.

The unexplained increase in the listed capacity was core to the district’s claim that the consolidation project qualified for a CEQA exemption.

Lewis said the purpose of the legal challenge is to seek a “reset” from the school board.

“We’re essentially asking the board to stop, reset all these timelines, and go back and look at it anew,” he said.

The school board’s March 10 vote to move forward with the consolidation scenario launched a rebranding process for the Analy campus. That discussion, too, has been fraught, with opposition from Analy families who don’t want the school’s name, mascot or colors to change.

Even so, Beal has informed the school board of plans to propose a new brand for the combined school by late May. Committees made up of district staff, students and community members also are working on recommendations that range from transportation to unifying the two school communities and working out class schedules.

El Molino community members are fighting back on other fronts, too. They have filed recall petitions with the Sonoma County Clerk, which target Noe and two other board members who voted for consolidation in March. By Thursday afternoon, the group had raised about $65,000 to support its legal efforts, Mills estimated.

Read the full lawsuit below or here.

You can reach Staff Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay.