Pomona Unified presents school consolidation scenarios, draws strong pushback from Marshall community

Pomona Unified School District staff on Wednesday presented a set of preliminary school consolidation and reconfiguration options aimed at addressing long-term enrollment decline and corresponding budget pressure, prompting parents, teachers and counselors to urge the board to keep small neighborhood schools open.

Fernando Mesa, assistant to the superintendent for facilities, maintenance, operations and transportation, framed the presentation as information only and said the district’s committees had developed objective criteria to evaluate campuses. “We went out and gotten stakeholder input and tried to get collaboration,” Mesa said, adding the recommendations are intended to improve program access for students and, secondarily, reduce operating costs.

The proposal presented several scenarios: reconfiguring Harrison from a K–8 to a pre-K–6 with its current 7th–8th graders routed to Emerson Middle School; consolidating Armstrong Elementary with Golden Springs; and multiple options for Marshall Middle School, including moving Marshall students to Ganesha High School and creating a 7–12 early college academy, or keeping Marshall open under a “Plan B” partnership with the district’s School for Extended Educational Opportunities (SAIL). The district also discussed repurposing the Palomares campus and the potential to declare it surplus for redevelopment.

Mesa said the district has lost about 10,000 students since 2002, falling from roughly 35,000 to just over 21,000 students, and that Pomona’s enrollment has fallen on average about 2.4% year-over-year. He said the district currently operates 38 schools for roughly 21,000 students, a…