The OUSD Board's decision to close of Silverado Elementary School will result in some students being bussed daily into Chapman Hills Elementary School in Orange (estimated 1.5-2 hours round trip) and other students traveling along Santiago Canyon Road and Live Oak Canyon to reach the closer school, Trabuco Elementary.
Both options present danger to the students.
There have been two fatal accidents on Live Oak Canyon Road in the last two weeks. According to a January 2009 OC Register article, since 2005, there have been 206 collisions with 164 injuries and seven fatalities along the same stretch of road - but of course, that was before the recent tragedies.
More information regarding the daily commute to Orange soon.
(Photo above from the Orange County Register.)
Justine Wyngaarden, Katie Morgan and Cheyenne Melville were all sent to the GATE program and attended LaVeta Elementary in the 4th grade. All of these girls returned to Silverado Elementary School because they could not cope with various issues they faced at their new school. The bus ride was an hour one way! That was two hours a day spent on the bus. They all managed to exceed in their middle school and high school. Each girl attending honors classes. Amazing! They managed to keep up with the other children at LaVeta. This was due to the small classes and awesome teachers at Silverado Elementary School. These young children do not deserve to be loaded on a bus and sent to schools outside of their community. I would think our property tax base can certainly handle the expenses our Silverado Elementary School.
ReplyDeleteVivian Wyngaarden
22 Year Resident.
Good point. I did a rough search and this is what I found: http://www.city-data.com/zips/92676.html
ReplyDeleteThere are 820 homes in our zip 92676 and average property tax $1500 a year = $1,230,000 for our little canyon area. I wonder how much goes to schools, fire safety, OCSD, etc.
184 school days = 368 bus trips for: 5/6/7/8/9/10/11 year old kids
ReplyDeleteSilverado school kids will be THE ONLY school effected by x4 OUSD Trustees knuckleheaded decision to CHOOSE "summer school" funding $$$$$$ over keeping the Canyon Community kids intact in the rural environment in which they live. In a 244+ million dollar budeget $$$$$$$$$$, plus an additional 9 million FED stimulus funds, they scratch their heads and claim: "IT"S IMPOSSIBLE" to find a solution to keep SILVERADO open like it has been for the last 103 years? "We just can't find that $98,000 dollars to keep Silverado kids from being bussed to Chapman Hills"... 368 times a year @ apprx an hour each trip... that's equal to what?...at x8 hour per day... 9 WEEKS of busing for the kids school year!
Capt' Greybeard