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Inglewood Unified presents community survey on surplus sites; residents favor community uses, oppose private sale
Summary
The district reported results from three community input sessions (117 survey respondents) about future uses for five surplus or potentially surplus school sites. Responses favored community centers, health/wellness clinics and workforce or multifamily housing for staff; many respondents opposed selling sites to private developers or leaving them vacant.
The Inglewood Unified School District on May 15 presented the results of community input sessions about the future of several idle or underused school sites, saying 117 people completed the survey across three meetings and that answers consistently prioritized community uses over private sale.
Assistant Superintendent and Chief Business Official Rafael Guzman summarized the survey broken down by site. At the Highland site, about 20% of respondents favored community centers or meeting space and 15% favored multifamily housing to generate lease income. At Hutnau, 24% selected a health or wellness clinic and 14% selected workforce housing. At the Englewood Adult School site, open-ended responses included arts and cultural uses and a trade school; respondents most often opposed selling the property to private developers without district oversight. At Kelso/Council and Morningside, answers were more dispersed but again showed substantial interest in adult education, vocational training and uses that keep the property under district control.
"We only had 117 responses," Guzman cautioned, urging the committee to treat the dataset as an initial snapshot rather than a definitive community mandate. He described the open-ended responses as strongly opposed to "sell[ing] to private developers" and often asking that the district retain some control or reserve sites for future public use.
County Administrator Dr. James Morris, who earlier noted the district’s advocacy for AB51 in Sacramento, confirmed the district will pursue more outreach. He described the naming process for reopened school sites as a principal-led community process, saying the principal convenes a school-site council, students and parents in the first year to decide a final name.
Committee members pressed staff on survey methodology and outreach barriers. Several members said the mostly digital setup at community meetings limited participation and recommended mailed notices, robocalls, bilingual flyers, onsite paper stations at affected school sites, and an ongoing online form with login controls to reduce duplicate submissions.
The presentation’s summary slides and the committee’s questions pointed to common priorities across neighborhoods—community centers, health services, workforce housing for district staff, and maintaining district oversight—plus consistent opposition to industrial or purely retail redevelopment and to letting properties sit vacant for extended periods. Guzman said the district will continue to compile and refine input as staff draft recommendations for each site.
The committee did not adopt any final dispositions at the meeting; members asked staff to expand outreach and factor the survey results into forthcoming recommendation reports and public hearings.
