Cupertino council members push back on school closures
As part of the ongoing pushback surrounding the closure of two Cupertino Union School District schools, pleas for the district to reconsider have escalated to the Cupertino City Council — much to the district's chagrin.
Last October, the district's board of education voted to close Regnant and Meyerholz elementary schools and consolidate Muir Elementary next fall amid declining enrollment numbers.
But the decision has been met with intense scrutiny from parents who have continued to argue the district is in the wrong by not using pandemic funding to keep schools open, not taking into consideration mandates to increase housing production and miscalculating enrollment projections. The district has provided evidence to dispute each argument.
Although the council has no jurisdiction over the school district, parents have been asking council members for months now to take action. At the council meeting March 15, Vice Mayor Liang Chao and Council member Jon Robert Willey led an unsuccessful effort to send a letter from the council to the district asking them to reconsider.
“The governor allocated more money to keep schools open, but CUSD is taking advantage of the pandemic to make closure decisions,” Chao vehemently argued.
According to the district's website, CUSD received $14 million to help “address the effects of the pandemic.” One of the conditions of receiving the funds, however, was that they couldn't be used to avoid potential school closures.
CUSD Superintendent Stacy Yao addressed the “rumors” about school closures March 15, stating that “any suggestion the board's decision was either hastily made or ill-informed is inaccurate.”
The district first convened an advisory committee to examine declining enrollments 51/2 years ago and has lost more than 4,900 students from the 2015-16 to the 2021-22 school years. In the next eight years, the district projects it will lose an additional 4,000 students.
The decline in enrollment in Cupertino is on track with what other schools are seeing across the state. In the past five years, public schools in California have seen a decrease in enrollment of more than 230,000, according to data from the California Department of Finance. Those numbers are expected to continue to decline, with state officials projecting Santa Clara County to have the fifth- largest enrollment drop in California.
Experts largely have pointed to declining birth rates as the cause for low school enrollment.
On March 15, Yao also asked the council not to get involved with the district's school closure plans.
“While the district understands the importance of the City Council in responding to the pleas of their constituents, serving a letter, which has no legal standing, will only further divide the community, create false hope and impede the work necessary for the district to focus on student learning,” she said.
But Willey argued that the council was elected to “represent the residents” and hear all of their complaints.
“I listened to Superintendent Yao tonight and it sure sounded to me as an audience person, she wasn't here to listen, she was here to tell,” he said. “If CUSD has important information about our streets or about something in our community, I want to hear.”
Council member Hung Wei, who previously served on the Fremont Union High School District Board of Education, asked the council to trust the district's decision to close Regnant and Meyerholz and consolidate Muir, citing that declining enrollment is “indisputable.”
“It is not our place to dispute the facts and what the CUSD board and district has done and put them under the bus,” she said.