PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID ENCINITAS, CA 92025 PERMIT NO. 94
THE COAST NEWS
.com MAKING WAVES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
VOL. 28, N0. 25
Gaspar takes over with little fanfare
SAN MARCOS -NEWS
District may revise enrollment policies .com By Aaron Burgin
ENCINITAS — The San Dieguito Union High School District might look at revising its high school enrollment policies after a group of parents said the current system is keeping an increasing number of students from attending their neighborhood school, San Dieguito Academy. Associate Superintendent Michael Grove said that he would recommend the school board create a task force to examine the district’s current policy to see if it needs to be change and explore the ramifications of any changes. The school board will consider Grove’s recommendation at its board meeting on Thursday. The announcement, made at a Monday workshop at Cardiff Elementary, comes a week after par-
By Aaron Burgin
ENCINITAS — The change in the Encinitas Council chambers last week was subtle, and occurred with little fanfare. On June 11, Kristin Gaspar officiated her first meeting as the city’s last appointed mayor, a title she will carry for six months until voters elect the city’s first elected mayor in November. “It really is a privilege and honor to serve,” Gaspar said. Gaspar transitioned into the largely ceremonial post as part of a compromise that called for Teresa Barth to serve as mayor from December to June 11, and Gaspar to complete the second half of the year. That transition was briefly in question when Councilwoman Lisa Shaffer requested to discuss the compromise. While Shaffer said her intentions were never to deny Gaspar the mayoral seat, Gaspar and her supporters questioned the need
June 20, 2014
MR. PADRE
Tony Gwynn passed away this week at the age of 54. Sports writer Jay Paris reflects on a lasting memory of the San Diego Padres great and Major League Baseball Hall of Fame inductee on page A15. Photo courtesy San Diego Padres
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Sale of reservoir ‘off the table’ for now By Rachel Stine
CARLSBAD — Community members came out in droves to Tuesday night’s city council meeting to advocate for a park in the place of the abandoned Buena Vista Reservoir. “This is what so many small towns do, they take these beautiful spaces they have and they preserve them for their residents,” said longtime Carlsbad resident Connie Chavez, addressing city council. “I can’t believe we even need to convince you.” The Buena Vista Reservoir is located on Buena Vista Way in the midst of some of Carlsbad’s oldest neighborhoods east of Interstate 5 and off of Carlsbad Village Drive, known as Olde Carlsbad. Situated on a hilltop with an ocean view, the reservoir has not been used in decades. The property is overgrown with weeds and hidden behind a locked gate with “No Trespassing” signs. The city took actions to consider selling the underutilized reservoir land in 2013 for new houses, but never made the decision to put the property up for sale. Just over 3 acres, the site is
The abandoned Buena Vista Reservoir has not been used in decades. Residents are petitioning
TURN TO RESERVOIR ON A19 the city to turn the gated-off site into a public park. File photo by Rachel Stine
Bottom line, the benefits of going to neighborhood schools are compelling....” Joel Rump Parent
ents packed the district’s board room to protest the fact that the children who weren’t accepted to SDA were being forced to make a longer, traffic-filled commute to La Costa Canyon High School. Parents have called on the district to consider changing both San Dieguito and Canyon Crest academies from open-enrollment schools to schools that would feed from the neighborhood, the model currently used at Torrey Pines and La Costa Canyon. One parent, Joel Rump, calculated that families would spend as much as $5,000 additional dollars in fuel and a full week more in their cars as a result of having to drive their kids to La Costa Canyon. “Bottom line, the benefits of going to neighborhood schools are compelling,” Rump said. “And the drawbacks (to doing nothing) are pretty profound.” Nearly 100 people attended the workshop,
during which Grove and district Superintendent Rick Schmitt explained THE how the district’s current VISTA enrollment policies came to be, and theNEWS potential effects of a change. Grove said the district has three choices: make all of the school neighborhood schools, make all of the schools open-enrollment schools or maintain the status quo. Changing the boundaries, he warned, would be a long and potentially divisive process. RANCHO “Redrawing boundaries is SFNEWS a politically fraught process,” Grove said. The district’s current model for high schools was borne during the 1990s when the district was opening La Costa Canyon, and parents and administrators were concerned that the new high school create an ethnic and economic divide between the neighborhoods. As a solution, the district changed San Dieguito from a neighborhood high school to an academy open to all students in the district that would have to apply for admission. The district continued with that model when it opened Canyon Crest in 2004. Grove said that other districts have emulated San Dieguito’s open-enrollment model for new schools, including Mission Vista High School in the Vista Unified School District and Sage Creek High School in Carlsbad. The district’s lottery process calls for each eighth grade student to declare one school as their school of choice. If more students apply for the two academies than the capacity allows, the district conducts a lottery. Students who live in the school district’s northern half who don’t get into their school of choice must attend La Costa Canyon, and those who live in the southern half must go to Torrey Pines. Grove said the policy complies with the state’s laws governing open enrollment, which were enacted in 1993 to allow students to transfer from their neighborhood schools to other schools within their district, and conduct a lottery if demand exceeds capacity. State rules don’t allow proximity of schools to give students priority in the lottery process. Most years, the dis-
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