Schools, programs at risk

Destiny Kilgore has blossomed at Doyle Park Elementary School.

The 5-year-old kindergartener found a best friend in class, participates in Girl Scouts after school and likes her teacher.

It wasn't always this way, and Destiny's dad, Kenneth Kilgore, worries that if the Santa Rosa school is closed in 2009 because of budget cuts, his daughter will suffer.

"She was really shy, but they have brought her out of her shell," he said. "The school is great, her teacher is excellent. (Destiny) doesn't want to go through that process again of being in a new environment."

Doyle Park Elementary and Comstock Middle School have emerged as potential targets if the Santa Rosa School Board opts to close or reconfigure schools in 2009 to deal with a looming two-year, $17.3 million deficit.

And that financial hole could deepen if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget projections, scheduled for release Wednesday, result in more severe funding cuts than he proposed in January.

The school board will meet Wednesday to begin discussing dramatic cuts that could include slicing spending on middle and high school sports by half, closing libraries and closing or reconfiguring schools.

Those options aren't being considered before 2009, so other cuts are proposed for this fall, including eliminating an assistant principal from every high school.

The district is slated to purge its reserve fund of $5.5 million in the next school year to keep the cuts from going too deep.

But there are fewer protections in 2009-10, when cuts are expected to hit much harder.

"These are chaotic times," said board president Jim Leddy.

For parents deciding where to send their elementary students, uncertainty about Doyle Park's future could exacerbate the Sonoma Avenue campus' already declining enrollment.

Doyle Park, one of the older schools in the city, has 276 students, according to the district. That is a 31 percent decline in five years.

When the school opened in 1952, the city had just 18,000 residents and was in the early stages of a 45-year growth boom. For decades Doyle Park school has served the families east of downtown and south of Fourth Street as far east as Farmers Lane. The area was, and largely remains, a mixture of neat, tree-lined middle-class streets and some blue-collar neighborhoods.

In more recent years, the gradual increase in students who are English-language learners has been accompanied by a flight of other families to other Santa Rosa schools, such as Proctor Terrace and Hidden Valley, or to other districts.

Kindergarten registration for the coming school year is just 36 students, by the far the fewest in the district.

"Clearly we are going to have a discussion about what to do with that site," Leddy said. "I never advise people to abandon ship. My recommendation is for them to participate in the process and help us make the case that Doyle Park should stay open."

Doyle Park's Parent Faculty Association president Jen Collins said discussions of closing Doyle Park, or even converting it into a charter school with a specific theme, do not address the underlying issue of neighborhood families not attending the school.

Even as a charter school "they are still going to have a lot of English language learners, and I think that is why families are leaving Doyle Park," she said.

But Collins, who describes her first-grade daughter as "thriving" at Doyle Park, hopes luring neighborhood families back to the school won't disenfranchise English language learners already enrolled.

"I don't want to compromise the English learners somehow," she said. "We need to address that. These kids are not going away."

Superintendent Sharon Liddell said budget discussions are too preliminary for parent groups to worry about their school's future.

"We still have to know what the board's direction is before we can advise parents," she said. "I would say to parents that have concerns, we have to have this discussion. The board has to determine what it is that is the best thing for our community, for our schools. We will do it as fairly as possible."

On Monday afternoon, students streamed out of the school's front doors and right past the campus marquee that reads: "Support Education Now."

It is a simple motto, but one that resonates with Doyle Park parent Martha Jared, who questions community priorities.

"It's a wake-up call to the community to really look at education as a whole," she said. "It's a much bigger picture than just Doyle Park."

"I'm so irate at the big picture," Jared said. "The big picture is what the problem is and it's affecting the little guys."

You can reach Staff Writer Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@ pressdemocrat.com.