Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Parents to Rally Outside Pasadena Unified Headquarters as Consolidation Committee Considers Second Vote

Artwork from a flyer circulating online calling for a rally Tuesday night outside Pasadena Unified headquarters.

Campuses remain under review as advisory panel meets tonight with community opposition intensifying

Parents and community members opposed to public school closures will rally outside Pasadena Unified School District headquarters Tuesday afternoon, 30 minutes before the advisory committee reviewing more than a dozen campuses for possible closure or consolidation convenes for what could be its most consequential session yet.

The “Save Our Schools” rally, scheduled from 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. on the sidewalk near the north parking lot at 351 S. Hudson Ave., precedes the fourth meeting of the Superintendent’s School Consolidation Advisory Committee, which runs from 5 to 7 p.m. in Room 151 of the same building.

The committee’s agenda concludes with a second vote — listed as an “after meeting” item — on whether to remove additional schools from the review list, the committee’s most significant procedural step since its March 9 session, when members voted to take nine campuses off the list and left 14 under consideration.

The rally flyer, which does not identify a sponsoring organization, invites students to attend in school colors and features signs reading “Put Students First!” and “Closures Hurt Students.” The slogan “FEWER SCHOOLS = FEWER OPPORTUNITIES” is printed across the flyer.

The committee deferred further narrowing at its March 23 meeting, with members saying they wanted more time before removing additional schools, according to notes from the Pasadena Education Network, an independent parent-advocacy organization whose executive director, Nancy Dufford, has attended all SCAC meetings. That session focused on reviewing special programs at each campus.

Three days later, at the March 26 Board of Education meeting, 56 speakers — parents, students, teachers, and staff — addressed the Board in opposition to closures.

Among them was a student identified as Violet, who commutes an hour each way to Thurgood Marshall Secondary School after being displaced by the Eaton Fire.

“If Marshall closes, I don’t know where I would go or if I would even stay,” Violet told the Board. “You’re not just closing the school. You’re losing students.”

Angelica Romero, an Altadena resident whose two seventh-graders attend Marshall, said at the same meeting that the school keeps her family connected to what they have lost.

“Closing Marshall would create barriers for our most vulnerable,” Romero said.

PUSD is projecting a budget shortfall of $30 million to $35 million for the coming fiscal year. Enrollment has fallen from 17,267 students in 2014-15 to 13,228 in the current year, a decline of roughly 23%. The district approved $24.5 million in budget cuts in November and issued layoff notices to more than 160 staff in February.

Tonight’s SCAC agenda also includes a review of committee objectives, follow-up questions on programs, and demographic data examining schools by ethnicity and subgroup. Small group discussions are scheduled before the vote. The meeting is moderated by Joseph Pandolfo, Ed.D., of Total School Solutions, the consulting firm working with the district under a contract not to exceed $233,300.

The SCAC — an advisory body whose members were selected from 167 applicants and appointed by Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco — has three meetings remaining after tonight: April 13, April 27, and May 11, when the committee is expected to deliver its final recommendation to the Board. Public hearings are set for the May 28 and June 11 Board meetings, with a vote on any closures scheduled for June 25. Any approved closures would take effect for the 2027-28 school year.

The district was also planning to hold a virtual town hall Tuesday morning from 9:30 to 11 a.m. on the consolidation process, livestreamed in English and Spanish at pusd.us/townhall.

SCAC meeting information is available at pusd.us/scac.

“It is important to note that no school is slated to be closed or consolidated at this point in time,” Blanco wrote in a community message on March 11, “and that it is possible that the Committee may not recommend any schools for closure.”