Jim Brown (1970)
After reading the issues surrounding the closure of PHS, I spoke to my father-in-law, Nathan Kleinstein, to see what he remembered. He is now 95 and is doing pretty good, walking daily and water exercising 3x/week. He served on the school board for 12 years, from 1968-1980. This is what he recalls:
1. Declining enrollment in the district resulted in discussion, research and a recommedation from school district administration.
2. There was suffienceint room at one site for both schools, with the possible addition of a few portables.
3. The district would save personnel and maintenace costs by combining the two high schools into one.
4. The initial administrative recommendation was to close SLHS and move all high school students to PHS.
5. This was meet by heavy public discussion and outrage. One group wanted to keep SLHS open and gave the following reasons: a) SLHS was the original school in the district; b) it had room, with the additon of portables, to serve the new student body; c) it would provide a financial opportunity to update the school; d) the mayor and business development community wanted to close PHS since it was in the middle of businessa center and close proximity of a major freeway, which SLHS is not.
6. As a result of these dicussions, the district decided to recommend the closure of PHS instead.
7. Two major groups formed, one from PHS and the other from SLHS communities. They lobbied the strengths and weaknesses of each plan. No decision could be made so it went to arbitration and it was decided to close PHS.
8. He thinks that the PHS site was sold for $3.1 million with the fields and park going the the parks and recreation department.
9. Where did the money go? It was put into the general opporating budget, a category for general purposes. At that time, there were few restrictions placed on a general operating budget so the money, more than likely, paid for the site improvements at SLHS along with salary increases, program development and maintenance improvement.
Nathan then suggested to lease out PHS knowing that every 12-15 years communities go through both declining and increasing enrollments. He thought by leasing, when the population would grow larger than capacity, they could reopen PHS. Afterall, the cost of the land and remoding of the school would be much more fiscally responsive than to build a new school on very expensive land (as is the case with the current 9th grade structure - the Fred T Korematsu Center, built in 2004 at at a cost of $21 million, and I believe this is in addition to the land costs!)
I found this interesting coming from one who was an integral and decision making body of the district. I hope this helps.
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