Sunday, May 31, 2026

Guest Opinion | Francesca Mariani: The PUSD Board Made the Right Decision on the Equity Report

At a recent Pasadena Unified School District board meeting, I asked a simple question about the district’s proposed Equity Impact Analysis related to school closures:

Where exactly is the equity analysis?

The document prepared by Total School Solutions discussed facilities, staffing reductions, operating costs, and consolidation scenarios. But much of it read less like a true equity analysis and more like a financial and facilities report with the word “equity” placed on the cover page afterward.

Equity is not simply about balancing spreadsheets. Equity asks deeper questions: Who bears the burden of these decisions? Who loses access? Which communities face disproportionate disruption? And are existing inequities being reinforced rather than reduced?

Those questions were largely missing.

Transportation, Geography, and History Matter

The report contained little meaningful analysis of transportation impacts, commute patterns, walking access, or how families actually navigate PUSD’s open-enrollment system.

If schools south of, or near, the 210 freeway corridor are closed, how does that affect families who rely on those campuses because they are accessible during daily commutes? What happens when schools serving large populations of socioeconomically disadvantaged students are consolidated into fewer campuses? Could those decisions unintentionally concentrate disadvantage rather than expand opportunity?

The report did not seriously engage these questions.

Nor did it meaningfully address our community’s own history of east-west racial segregation and contentious school boundary disputes. These boundaries re-emerged with the Eaton Fire and how evacuations were handled. Any serious equity analysis should examine whether restructuring plans could unintentionally recreate historical patterns of separation.

Vulnerable Students Cannot Be an Afterthought

The report also failed to meaningfully examine the impacts on vulnerable students and families.

Students with disabilities, students struggling with anxiety or mental health challenges, LGBTQ students, students involved with child welfare systems, and students recovering from trauma all experience school stability differently.

In Altadena, these concerns are especially urgent.

The report contained almost no discussion of students and families still recovering from the Eaton Fire. How many lost homes in each school? How many remain displaced or are still navigating trauma and instability? How might additional school disruption compound those impacts?

An equity analysis should examine cumulative impacts on communities already under strain by asking them directly. This one did not.

Programs Are Communities

The report also treated specialized programs as though they could simply be relocated from one campus to another.

But programs are communities built through years of relationships, staffing, training, sequencing, and culture.

Blair High School illustrates this clearly. Blair houses PUSD’s only 6–12 International Baccalaureate pathway and the district’s only Spanish 90–10 Dual Language Immersion IB pathway.

These are not interchangeable “offerings” on a spreadsheet. They are long-term educational communities intentionally built over decades. It was clear that TSS had not actually talked with the leaders of our great programs to build this report.

Equity is not simply whether a program technically survives somewhere on paper. Equity also means preserving meaningful access, continuity, stability, and belonging.

The Board Was Right to Reject This Report

Ultimately, one of the deepest problems with the report was philosophical: schools were treated primarily as facilities instead of communities.

There was little discussion of school climate, student belonging, teacher retention, neighborhood cohesion, or the long-term social consequences of destabilizing communities families depend upon.

AB 1912 requires districts to examine impacts on students and communities. That should include transportation, geography, segregation patterns, vulnerable populations, enrollment retention, cumulative trauma, and program continuity — not simply costs and capacities.

The PUSD Board at a dramatic moment during the 6 hours plus meeting May 28, ultimately voted 6–1 to reject the Equity Impact Analysis, raising many of these same concerns during public discussion.

That was the right decision.

What was equally striking that night was how many families, students, educators, and community members showed up because they deeply care about public education in Pasadena and Altadena. The meeting demonstrated that this district does not suffer from a lack of community investment. If anything, it revealed an enormous reservoir of commitment, expertise, and civic engagement that has too often been treated as an obstacle instead of an asset.

PUSD should leverage that energy going forward.

Francesca Mariani is a parent of two children in PUSD and lives in Altadena.