2-26-04 The School Board votes to close the Acton School and transfer all of its students to Meadowlark and Agua Dulce. It votes to raise class sizes in kindergarten and 3rd grade from 20 to 30+ students. Grades 1 and 2 stay at 20 students.
The School Board simultaneously votes to reduce class sizes from 4th to 6th grades from 40 to 30+ students. It also lays off 5 teachers due to the class size increases.
The School Board ignored an alternate proposal that kept the 6th grade students at either the Acton School or moves them to High Desert School. This kept the class sizes from kindergarten through 3rd grade to 20 students, had 23 students in 4th grade, and 30 students in the 5th and 6th grades. This alternate plan would have saved the 5 teachers from lay-off and instead would have hired a new teacher.
This alternate plan would have cost $12,000 more the 1st year and $8,000 more each additional year over the plan adopted by the School Board. It would have kept over 300 students from having their class sizes increased by 50% (from 20 to 30 students).
After interviewing individual Board members after the School Board meeting, they stated that they only considered the plan in the Board package and could not consider any more recent plans, but said they would consider this alternate plan at the next Board Meeting.
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Acton Agua Dulce School District
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