Committee: Lincoln and Beverly Hills should close
Pleas from local parents and students last month apparently didn’t sway a special Vallejo school district committee from recommending the closure of Beverly Hills and Lincoln elementary schools.
The Vallejo school board will receive a final report on Wednesday from the District Property Advisory Committee, which is recommending students from both schools be relocated, freeing up the property for sale or re-use as another district facility.
The board is expected to make a final decision on whether to im
plement the recommendations at a future meeting.
The nine-person committee concluded that students from Lincoln Elementary — the oldest public school in the city of Vallejo — should be relocated to Mare Island Health and Fitness Academy and Farragut Elementary, while students attending Beverly Hills in South Vallejo be moved to Glen Cove, Pennycook, and Steffan Manor elementary schools.
The committee is also recommending the district sell the main district offices on Mare Island, relocating the school district’s administration to another district property, and reconfigure Franklin
Middle School to a K-6, or K-8 school.
School property currently vacant, like the Crest Center on Gateway Drive, Grant Facility on Fifth Avenue, and the former school site of John Finney High School on Hobbs Avenue, should be declared surplus for the purposes of either selling or leasing the property, the committee is recommending.
Over a 100 students, parents, and community members came out to a public hearing in mid December called by the committee to receive feedback on its then-proposed recommendations.
Many asked the committee not to close the two schools — however, the committee decided to keep the recommendations in its final report.
“Sometimes we know that budgetary concerns create situations that necessitate difficult choices. However, the closing and/ or re-purposing of Lincoln school should not be one of the possibilities,” said Rosa Silveira, a first grade teacher at Lincoln at that public hearing. “Lincoln is the only school in the downtown area. Lincoln is a historic site — and the land was donated for educational purposes only.”
Possible closure of the eight district properties comes as the district attempts to pay down $15 million owed to the state of California.
The Vallejo City Unified School District Board of Education will meet at 6 p.m., Wednesday inside the Governing Board Room at 665 Walnut Avenue on Mare Island in Vallejo.