Yuma school unification push revived

A proposal to unify Yuma County school districts that was defeated in the Nov. 4 election has been revived and been added to the Yuma Union High School District's Wednesday meeting agenda.

"Obviously we don't want this back but we received an e-mail from Marty Shultz (chair of School District Redistricting Commission) telling us the matter was re-submitted by Jay Blanchard, who represented Yuma on the commission," Mary Melchionne, YUHSD president, said.

Melchionne encourages as many people as possible to attend the next YUHSD meeting where discussion and possible action of additional efforts to unify school districts will be engaged. The YUHSD meeting is scheduled for Dec. 3 at 5 p.m. in the governing board meeting room at 3150 S. Avenue A.

"We're not opposed to unification but we are opposed to breaking up YUHSD and creating three high school districts in its place," Melchionne said.

In the Nov. 4 election the commission had proposed to unify the current nine school districts into four districts while leaving the Hyder School district as it is. In an argument against the proposal published in the voter pamphlet earlier this fall, Melchionne along with several other board members urged a "No" vote.

The argument claimed that if voters passed the initiative, operating costs associated with unification will increase and property owners in parts of YUHSD will pay more with reorganization of three separate K-12 districts. Also, dividing the high schools into three districts will discourage horizontal alignment of curriculum and make retaining at-risk students in high school even more challenging.

In addition the argument said, the commission failed to investigate any of the issues the nine governing boards communicated in a letter addressed to them in the fall of 2007, nor did they hold county-wide public hearings to discuss problems with their plan.

"There is no evidence we would save money by having three high school districts," Melchionne said. "By having three districts you create a need to build another high school because Cibola would become overcrowded since it does not have the capacity to handle students in Crane and Somerton."

Melchionne added that she hoped the board could reach a consensus at Wednesday's meeting so she she could speak for the board as a whole when she attends a meeting on the issue in Phoenix on Dec. 9 at 2 p.m. in the House Hearing Room No. 3 at the State Capital Building.

Because of the formation of the Yuma Education Consortium in the early 1990s a number of services are already combined among Yuma schools, she said, and the savings would be a lost economic benefit if the commission succeeds with reviving its school unification plan.

If unification comes before the voters again they will not cast ballots until 2010 and that means plans will not be approved until 2012, with the expectation of it going into effect in the 2013-14 school year, she explained.

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William Roller can be reached at wroller@yumasun.com or 539-6858.