By Kyla Calvert
This week San Diego Unified staff members will start meeting with representatives from 10 of the district’s 16 clusters of schools.
The district is hoping that closing or consolidating some of these schools could save about $5 million for the coming school year.
A committee of district staff members has been meeting since January to identify areas of the city with schools that are not being used to their full capacity or meet other criteria to be considered for closure. Those committee members will go to cluster meetings now through mid-October to discuss their findings and gather community input.
Community members from areas identified for possible closures told board of education trustees they felt the process was already skewed in favor of schools in more affluent neighborhoods.
“It was really apparent to those of us in the Crawford Cluster that there were clusters missing from the list,” said Becky Breedlove, who is leader of the cluster of schools in the eastern portion of the Mid City area. “And those that came to our minds at first, we immediately thought of Scripps, La Jolla, Mira Mesa and San Diego High.”