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Parents and students press Capistrano Unified board for tighter campus security and smaller K–3 classes
Summary
At the Sept. 17 Capistrano Unified School District board meeting, parents and students urged single-point entry systems, more adult supervision and reduced K–3 ratios. Multiple speakers cited classrooms of 30–32 students and called for the board to review district policy and funding.
At the Sept. 17 meeting of the Capistrano Unified School District Board of Trustees, a string of public commenters pressed trustees to strengthen campus security and reduce class sizes in the district’s youngest grades.
"Right now, during school hours, our front doors to our schools are open," Roxanne Berlin, a Wagon Wheel parent, told the board, urging the district to install single-point entry systems with buzzer access and cameras and to consider "at least one trained armed security personnel" on campus. Berlin said one school raised $90,000 in two weeks to secure its front entry.
Several parents described large kindergarten and early elementary classrooms. "My child's first-grade class has 32 students, the maximum allowed by the state," said Nicole Webster, who asked the board and Superintendent Chris Brown to review class-size policy and its effects on students and teachers. Birdie Hatch, a parent at LNES, said multiple combo classrooms at her school have "either 31 or 32 children" in rooms built for smaller cohorts.
Lindsay, a parent from Los Flores, appealed on safety grounds after the district’s COVID-era funding ended: she described a recent "swatting" incident at the site and said limited staff leave students unaccompanied while walking to the nurse. "I'm requesting ... additional funding to Los Flores for aides and assisting to keep our children safe," she said.
Mary, another speaker, urged the district to hold an all-parents meeting about AB 495 and warned that the law's implementation has legal ambiguities. "There are hundreds of lawyers looking at this bill," she said, urging the district to bring legal counsel for an explanation.
Board members acknowledged the concerns but did not take immediate action at the meeting. Trustees heard these speakers during the oral communications period before moving on to an informational presentation on the College and Career Advantage program.
The board did approve the consent calendar and moved other business along; the public's safety and class-size requests were recorded as issues for future consideration rather than items with formal votes.
