Friday, June 26, 2026

School District “Transformation” Resolution Gets Green Light

[Editor: An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of a student board member. It has been corrected. We offer a sincere apology to Kathryn Bleeker.]

[Updated]   The Board of Education on Thursday approved a resolution setting an Aug. 13 study session on “district transformation” — a process critics called out as campus consolidation under another name.

The board adopted Resolution No. 2894 (Revised), which rescinds the district’s earlier “optimal school size” framework, Resolution 2852, and directs staff to assemble enrollment, capacity and demographic data for the August session, where trustees will decide how to move forward.

The measure passed over the “no” votes of trustees Jennifer Hall Lee, Patrice Marshall McKenzie and Michelle Richardson Bailey, three of the board’s seven members.

It also passed over an advisory no vote cast by student board member Kathryn Bleeker, who said the student assembly was unanimous in its opposition.

The three dissenting trustees opposed the resolution on overlapping grounds: that it moved to a vote before the board had repaired what several called a broken public trust, and that the timing — during summer break and amid continuing disaster recovery — was wrong.

Bailey said the resolution “lacked transparency.”

“I felt like it was a bait and switch, and I was disappointed, to say the least,” she said, faulting the measure for not creating space “to address restoring confidence and trust in this community.”

She added: “Again, we didn’t learn our lesson. We put another resolution on for action before discussion. … I cannot support this resolution.”

Hall Lee was blunter about the language itself.

“When I see a resolution that talks about transformation, I hear a corporate buzzword,” she said. “It’s from Silicon Valley.”

She argued the timing was wrong, “in the middle of a recovery of a disaster,” and warned that revisiting school stability would hurt families, “not after the fire, not after an entire town that’s been decimated.”

Trust, she said, “is always rebuilt at the dais first. … We can’t expect people out in the community to trust us if we don’t trust each other.”

McKenzie called the central problem “the fracture of public trust” and said the district lacked a baseline from which to even define transformation.

Proceeding “without having good information is irresponsible and reckless,” she said, adding that asking the superintendent’s limited leadership team to take on the work as schools prepare to open “is not the best use of their time.”

Her conclusion: “This initiative and this resolution is a full ‘no’ for me at this point.”

Supporters cast the resolution more narrowly — as a vote merely to schedule a public conversation.

Board member Kimberly Kenne, who brought the measure forward, said “there’s been some conjecture that this means consolidation, but I hope that the words that are in it will speak for themselves.”

The strongest defense came from Vice President Yarma Velázquez, who said silence would not rebuild trust.

“I cannot in good faith say the best way to build trust is to stay silent,” she said.

But Velázquez also offered what amounted to the resolution’s most consequential admission: that consolidation is, in practice, already underway.

“We have schools that have in effect been consolidating starting in August that are going to be sharing principal, that are going to be sharing staff, that are going to be sharing curriculum, that are going to be sharing electives,” she said. “That is already happening in August.”

The vote followed public comment on the item, most of it opposed; of 14 people who signed up to speak, nine did so, with the others absent when called.

The Aug. 13 session falls on the Thursday before the new school year begins the following Monday, a board member noted — timing the resolution’s critics said leaves little room for the student voices the district says it intends to prioritize.