FIREBAUGH -- A campaign to transfer administration of Oro Loma Elementary School to a Fresno County school district may cause more harm than good, district representatives say.
Three residents in the area -- which is characterized not by a main street or any commercial outfit, but by the nine-classroom schoolhouse that opened in the early 1950s -- filed a petition with the Fresno County Office of Elections in June to transfer governance of the school from the Dos Palos-Oro Loma School District in Merced County to the Firebaugh-Las Deltas School District in Fresno County.
At a meeting Wednesday night, both school districts formally announced they did not support the power-transfer petition and asked twin oversight committees from Fresno and Merced counties to reject it.
Residents in the district forced a series of public meetings after filing a petition alleging that a cost-cutting move by the school district board to close the sixth through eighth grades at the school -- causing those students to attend Bryant Middle School in Dos Palos -- made the entire Oro Loma school vulnerable to closure.
Oro Loma Elementary School is in Fresno County, 10 miles south of Dos Palos High and 12 miles west of Firebaugh. It serves students within the 421 square miles of agricultural land that formerly defined Oro Loma as a stand-alone school district.
The school joined the Dos Palos-Oro Loma district on July 1, 1993, as part of a three-district unification.
Wednesday night, it became clear that the request for a transfer would make Oro Loma's closure imminent.
If the territory transfer were approved, Firebaugh-Las Deltas would "most likely be financially compelled to discontinue the operation of the Oro Loma School as a school site and transport all of the students residing within the boundaries of the transferred territories" to Firebaugh daily, according to a position paper from the school district, filed with the two-county committee.
It would cost the district between $639,000 and $1.3 million to operate the school annually, Firebaugh-Las Deltas Superintendent Violet Chuck said. The lower figure is the projected cost of closing the Oro Loma facility and busing all students to Firebaugh each day. The higher figure, which is not feasible, is the cost to keep the school running, Chuck said.
The Firebaugh-Las Deltas position paper also stated that the petition did not meet several requirements for consideration by the state board as specified in California Education Code. The law states that a territory transfer can only occur when districts share a "substantial community identity," something Firebaugh said most closely reflects the relationship with Dos Palos, where Oro Loma eighth-graders have continued to high school for as long as anyone can remember.
Dos Palos Superintendent Brian Walker said his district has no plans to close Oro Loma.
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