Long story short the Superintendent Al Mijares conveyed to me today that the only way to stop the consolidation is to get 130 new students interested or enrolled by June 1st.
This is it! A path forward. We have to get the word out. Get the name and phone number of parents who say “Yes we want to come to CHEP”, and get that list to the Superintendent.
I plan to go to my church and ask for time to tell people about CHEP. We must look for public events to find as many families as we can. If we can do this then we can save the multi-site system of CHEP.
This is all thanks to the work we did at the last OCDE school board meeting on Wednesday. At the meeting, myself, Kristi, her daughter Kelsey, and Shannon, each talked for three minutes.
Shannon gave a passionate speech about her own very personal struggle with the education system and how important her CHEP teacher has been to their family.
Kristi talked about how important it is that classes are within reach to families too far from Tustin to attend. She also said that CHEP is not in competition with regular school because it appeals most to people who have already made the leap into homeschooling.
Finally, Kelsey did so well. She talked about her personal experience as a CHEP student and said that if the North site closes she won't be able to attend anymore. It was probably the best part of the whole thing. These meetings can be pretty boring.
At the end, the School Board President expressed his displeasure that they were not told about any of this by the administrators. He said that school closings should always come before the board and that he was unhappy that the sites were being closed. They plan to add this as a special topic for discussion at the next board meeting, next month.
Maria arrived later in the meeting and together talked one on two with Al Mijares. At first he was adamant that they were not going to reverse course. There is another program that is in desperate need of funds. A program for incarcerated kids, an often forgotten issue. His plan was to move the funds saved by closing the sites to that program.
I agreed with him that the program for incarcerated kids is indeed very important. But I said that these needs don't have to be in opposition. It may be possible to get both if he would be willing to sit with us and discuss how.
He said to call today with numbers and talk to his secretary. I called him and he said the only way to halt consolidation was to get 130 new students interested or enrolled by June 1st.
I know that sounds like a lot but I'm so ready. We've come this far. I know Vincentia and other parents are already making plans. If you want to help please reach out me or Vincentia. This truly is our last chance.