We sent this letter to the San Diego Unified School District and urge you to contact our local school board representative Mr. Scott Barnett sbarnett@sandi.net and stress to him your thoughts about this vitally important issue.
Dear School Board Member:
Many of our members have approached the Board of Directors of our Pacific Beach Town Council with concerns for the future of our schools, their long-established specialized programs and our school cluster.
Our members concerns include yet are not limited to:
- The critical concern that Board of Education decisions are being hastily offered and considered without minimal parent or community support.
- That, when specifically considering closing the Pacific Beach Middle School (PBMS) site, the most centrally located in the community, this decision would likely result in many negative impacts. We are concerned, that you have not taken time to study potential negative impacts on our community including the majority of students needing to be driven to campus, the resulting traffic congestion and other public safety issues.
- A closure of either our PBMS or our Mission Bay High School (MBHS) would directly and negatively counter the concept of providing nearby neighborhood schools.
- We are gravely concerned that, if enrollment at both the middle and high schools is reduced, the International Baccalaureate (IB) program would not be allowed to continue under their existing certification requirements. Our members and residents have heard that, by reducing campus sizes so significantly, the result would be the discontinuance of the IB program—as it would not be sustainable.
- We would love to consider a YMCA joint use project that would eventually augment our PBMS school campus with a swimming pool, soccer field and sports facility.
The Pacific Beach Town Council and our nearly five-hundred residential and business members do not support the Board of Education’s position of closing ANY schools in the Mission Bay Cluster. Nor do we support any effort that would discontinue our IB program in any of our schools.
We believe your taking either action would have a significant negative impact on our cluster, our community and ultimately our students—who have placed their trust in us to provide them the best education possible in their local schools.
Finally, we believe that all ‘Prop S’ funds previously allocated to the Mission Bay Cluster should remain within the cluster and on schedule, regardless of any changes imposed on our community with or without our support.
We appreciate the difficulties you face but, also sincerely hope that you will respect our community and members beliefs as you make such important decisions that may very well adversely affect our community.
Sincerely,
Pacific Beach Town Council
Joe Wilding
President
