Tuesday, February 3, 2009
HELP US SAVE OUR SCHOOL!
Closing Dunlap School will result in overcrowding of the other schools in the district. More traffic congestion surrounding the adjecent schools such as Chapman Heights Elementary and Valley Elementary. It will also bring the property value down for the Dunlap Acres area. Let the YCJSD School Board know that you disapprove. A united community makes a better community. Dunlap has served our community for over 50 years. Let's work together to do what is right. We will be walking around with petitions all week at different schools. Please email us at savedunlapschool@msn.com if you would like to join this fight to save our school. We will also be picketing Monday February 9th at 4:30pm. We will meet at the intersection of Yucaipa Blvd and Oak Glen Road. Please make your own signs and come make a difference with us.
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To who it may concern,
ReplyDeleteDue to ridiculous budget cuts in excess of $500,000 just for this year. The school board of Yucaipa & Calimesa are proposing to close Dunlap Elementary. This school has been serving the town of Yucaipa for 50 years. It holds some great experienced teachers that have even taught some of the parents. Now because they built a new school for the more well to do people of Chapman Heights they are closing Dunlap in Dunlap acres. The only school in this neighborhood. In closing Dunlap they will force our children to attend schools in surrounding area. Therefore overcrowding these surrounding schools. Making a situation where all students will lose. They will also propose forcing these great experienced teachers of Dunlap into early retirement. They will lay off 22 teachers and an additional 20 more making this a total of 40. There is a significant economic status difference in the families of Dunlap and Chapman Heights. This I am afraid will compromise our student academic and social growth. The board has kept this a secret so that we could not come up with ways to resolve these issues at hand. I feel we have been railroaded by the school board. Today we will be attending the school board meeting to ask for more time and an alternative solution. Our kids should able to attend a school in their own neighborhood with peer of families like their own. It wasn’t enough to take away their principal and office staff now it is their school. My three children have and do attend this famed school . My 1st grader reads at a 3rd grade level and my 5th grade at a 7th grade level. We have bright students with good testing scores. This is not a broken school but the opposite. What Dunlap teacher are doing is working. Working for the futures of our children. Throwing them in this desperate solutions will diminish our hopes for a better future for our children . I call on the help of our communities to come to our aid. We need to come together and help the future of the children of the United States. Next years proposed budget cuts will be 1 million dollars for this district alone.
Sincerely,
April White
Dear Sirs;
ReplyDeleteI have lived in the Dunlap Area for twenty years, I have three children who are Dunlap Elementary students and my wife is going to be the PTA president. We are very disappointed to learn of the current proposal to close Dunlap Elementary School. I come from a small town in Missouri where funding for schools was never an issue, it was the priority and the schools always had the money needed to provide education for the children. I am angered by the inability of this state, with its immense resources, to do the same. I sympathize with the members of this school district and the difficult decisions they are faced with given the current budget projections.
However, we the residents of the Dunlap Area do not believe that closing Dunlap Elementary is an appropriate solution to balancing the budget. Our school is more than four walls and a roof, it is an institution which represents the history and character of Yucaipa. For over 50 years, and long before the golf course and urban sprawl known as Chapman Heights, Dunlap Elementary School served the educational needs of half of Yucaipa’s residents. We have some of the most qualified and dedicated staff and their efforts are reflected in the academic achievements of our students and the legacy of Dunlap Elementary. That is not something to be discarded like an old shoe. If fund raising, the sale of bonds, loans or any other options could result in saving our school than it should be considered and the residents of the Dunlap Area should have a say what happens.
Last year, when boundaries were re-established, Dunlap lost Approximately 25% of our student population and now we are told that one of the arguments being used to recommend closure is our cost per student is higher than the other schools. It seems as if our school was set up for failure. Poor planning on the part of the district does not justify elimination of our school. Our children have the right keep their school, and to attend a school populated with students of similar socio-economic status.
The District should be reminded that the citizens in the Dunlap Area have paid taxes for our school for as long as 50 years, the school has been paid for and our taxes should support the maintenance, if more revenue is required to keep it open than give us the choice of paying for it or closing the school. Also remember that when upsidedown property values in Chapman Heights result in vacant homes the citizens of the Dunlap Area will still be here living, working, paying taxes and casting votes
Next YCJUSD Board meetings is at the district office on 3rd street in Yucaipa at 6:30pm Feb. 10th, 2009. Come and let your voice be heard. Be active in the solution.
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