West Sonoma County families speak out about high school consolidation

More than 30 vehicles rolled out of the El Molino High School parking lot Saturday morning in Forestville, many decked out with red and black balloons and festooned with slogans like “Save ElMo” and “Stop the Vote.”

Honking loudly, the car parade made its way south from the Forestville campus to its Sebastopol destination: Analy High School, which these families believe is favored to stay open if local school officials move forward with consolidation plans that could close one of the campuses.

The debate over the future of the two high schools has divided the West Sonoma County Union High School District.

The district has held two virtual town halls over the past two weeks to get public feedback on two questions: should the district consolidate its two main high schools onto a single campus and, if so, when should it occur?

But the concerns, suggestions and objections of hundreds of families who attended have ranged far beyond those topics, encompassing which school campus will be closed, what would happen to a closed campus and how to make such a transition equitable for students spread out across the large school district.

The district’s exploration of merging Analy and El Molino by next school year has highlighted the tension in the relationship between the two schools. Families’ loyalty to their existing community colors the decision-making process even as the school board explores options beyond consolidating schools to deal with the district’s budget deficit.

“We sincerely are trying to be as clear as we can about the options that are in front of the board and explain why,” said Toni Beal, superintendent. “And what’s difficult is (that) we also understand all of the emotion involved with it.”

The school board could make a decision at its Nov. 18 meeting about which campus will be closed.

El Molino parents, fearing the district will opt to close the Forestville high school, have mobilized to demonstrate support for their school.

“The whole thing was just rushed from the get-go,” said Jessalee Mills, an alumna of El Molino High School and mother to two young children whom she expected would also attend her alma mater. When Mills heard in October what the school district was considering, she launched the Keep Our Lions Roaring group on Facebook to organize families to push for El Molino to stay open.

Mills and other members of the group say they believe Analy is more likely to remain open if the consolidation happens, based on the tenor of comments during public meetings.

A district-commissioned analysis of the two sites showed that shifting El Molino students to the Analy campus could be less complicated and cheaper than going the opposite route. About 569 students attend El Molino, though they come from a broad geographic area. In contrast, 1,125 students attend Analy.

El Molino’s campus is about 12 acres larger than Analy’s, but the latter has more classroom space, meaning fewer modular classrooms would be needed to ready the Sebastopol campus to add more students.

The district faces a $2 million budget deficit by the 2022-23 school year, and if it takes no action to reduce spending or boost revenue, it faces the possibility of needing a state loan and losing local control of its budget down the line.

Beal said Friday that the school district’s business officer had not yet determined the expected cost of operating each high school during the next two years. The expenses involved with combining the sites are also flexible, depending on what choices the school board makes to update the chosen campus.

The school district is looking to nearly $75 million in remaining bond money from a measure voters approved in 2018 to cover the construction costs of consolidation.

Students and their families are not the only ones who would be affected by a merger. The district employed 93 teachers and dozens of staff in the 2017-18 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The bulk of $1.2 million that the district projects it will save annually from consolidating comes from staff reductions, most of them classified staff and stipended position such as athletics coaches.

Beal said that board members haven’t prematurely reached a decision about which campus to keep operational in a consolidation scenario, a statement echoed by board President Jeanne Fernandes.

“I can say from talking to board members individually that they have not made up their minds,” Beal said.

One of the organizers of Saturday’s rally, Kara Mendez, took issue with comments Fernandes made in a recent television interview, in which the board president said that community members who felt left out had “chosen to not be involved” in the process.

“To claim this community has chosen not to be involved is absurd, insulting and inaccurate,” said Mendez, a Forestville native and El Molino graduate with two young children who she hopes will follow in her footsteps someday. “As you can see today, we are here.”

Members of a pro-El Molino Facebook group are sharing petitions calling for Beal and Fernandes to resign, as well as a third appeal expressing disapproval of West County high school consolidation. More than 1,800 had signed the third petition as of Saturday afternoon, with smaller levels of support for the calls for resignation.

Beal and Fernandes did not immediately respond Saturday afternoon to phone calls seeking comment about the petitions.

Regardless of which campus is chosen to host the school, both communities will be affected. Beal said that if the two schools were to become one, a new mascot and name likely would be chosen.

The two schools, both of which have received state and national recognition for their students’ academic performance, have long histories in the west part of Sonoma County.

Analy, established in 1908, is the district’s oldest and largest high school. Its music offerings have made a name for the school, and its innovative “Project Make” program has offered many students the opportunity to build hands-on skills to take with them after graduation.

El Molino, which started on the Analy campus in the fall of 1963 and moved to Forestville the following spring, has attracted families for generations with its strong agriculture and culinary arts programs, as well as its close-knit community.

Families of students and alumni have described what the loss of either school would mean to their community. Each site serves as a hub for meetings. Neighbors come by to run or walk on the tracks. In nonpandemic times, community members show up for music and sporting events.

Dustin Spelman, a sophomore at El Molino, worried about the extended commute for students coming from Cazadero, Monte Rio and beyond, and about the climate if students from rival schools were put together.

“Since El Molino is a lot smaller, everyone really knows each other,” he said. “That’s why they chose to be there.”

Tom and Svetlana Lynch live in El Molino boundaries, but transferred their daughter, Katya, to Analy so she could take advantage of the robust music program. Most of the neighboring homes around them are vacation rentals and second homes, they said, and they worry about enrollment declining further at schools in the Russian River area.

“We don’t have enough children here,” Tom Lynch said.

The school board has looked at a variety of scenarios for consolidation, but Beal said that this Wednesday night members will also hear details on a new scenario that could deal with the issue of a closed campus falling into disrepair. It would involve bringing El Molino students onto the Analy campus, and would cut down on the number of new modular classrooms needed, by shifting the district administrative offices and Laguna High School, the district’s continuation school, to the El Molino campus.

The board will also hear the results of a recent survey exploring the feasibility of pursuing a stopgap measure to allow more time before deciding to consolidate: putting a parcel tax measure before voters in March or May.

That suggestion came from a community member during the Oct. 28 town hall, and the board decided at its Nov. 6 meeting to survey families in both its own district and the elementary districts that feed into the high schools. The survey period was brief, about a week long. Beal will present its findings Wednesday.

Beal said that even if the tax were approved, it wouldn’t solve the district’s need to eliminate a structural deficit that is increasing with rising costs and falling enrollment and attendance every year.

“Even if we were to get one-time money, is it OK to take the one-time money and not consolidate?” she said. “Or ... should we address the structural deficit so we won’t have to have this conversation again?”

Regardless of whether consolidation gets the green light this month, Beal said, other work needs to continue.

“We obviously have some work to do with unifying our communities,” she said. “I’ve already been doing some work to engage outside facilitators, in trying to imagine what a process would look like to unify the district. I’m hoping that we can start that process in January.”

Staff Writer Will Schmitt contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay.