Lake Elsinore's Donald Graham will not be closed

By: RANI GUPTA - Staff Writer
Shutting the school would cost district money, officials say | Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:48 PM PDT ∞

LAKE ELSINORE ---- School trustees said Thursday they would not close Donald Graham Elementary next year because shuttering the Wildomar school would involve moving a specialized program for severely disabled children that would ultimately cost ---- not save ---- the district money.

Trustee Jon Gray had asked Lake Elsinore Unified School District administrators last week to research the possibility of closing Donald Graham to help bridge an anticipated $9.1 million shortfall in the budget for the year starting July 1.

But after district administrators explained that the school was home to a program serving nearly 30 students with mental retardation, orthopedic handicaps and other disabilities that would have been costly ---- if not impossible ---- to move, trustees said closing Graham was not an option.

"It just doesn't make any sense at all," Trustee Tom Thomas said.

That news brought cheers from Graham parents and employees, many wearing the school's red T-shirts, who packed one side of the multipurpose room at Ortega High School.

Filling the other side of the room were parents and teachers wearing the green shirts of Jean Hayman Elementary, a school that trustees are considering temporarily closing because of the local effects of the statewide budget crisis.

No final decision to close a school has been made.

Frances Bernal, an educator at Hayman, said she believed school officials had made up their minds before the meeting to shut her school.

"I feel like we were betrayed," she said. "The decision was made already to begin with and they're just following the process."

School officials said the program at Graham serves students with severe disabilities such as traumatic brain injuries, deafness and blindness. The Riverside County Office of Education runs the program and built its three classrooms, which include features such as a kitchen for staffers to puree foods for tube-feeding and swings to accommodate children who lack the strength to sit up straight.

The classrooms also contain large lifts to help students from wheelchairs to use the bathrooms and "standers" that give students a needed break from sitting in their wheelchairs all day.

Moving the program into portable classrooms would cost at least $780,000, according to estimates from the office of education. But school officials questioned whether portable classrooms would be suitable for the program at all, given the space the program requires.

Brenda Benitez and Olga Garibaldo, sisters who both have children at Hayman, agreed Graham shouldn't be shut because of the program.

"It makes sense not to close it, and if they did we'd feel bad," Benitez said.

But they worry that their children could be separated from their friends if the school is closed, especially if Hayman students are transferred to multiple campuses.

Hayman parent Elizabeth Roman said she believes trustees are set on closing Hayman and said the process has caused turmoil for her daughter, a first-grader at the school.

"She's already crying about it," Roman said. "She's very confused and saying, 'Where am I going to be?'"

Parents from Graham also spoke in favor of keeping all district schools open and blamed state officials for forcing tough cuts and pitting communities against each other.

"I don't want any schools to close," said Sherri Drake, president of the Donald Graham Parent-Teacher Association.

Contact staff writer Rani Gupta at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2625, or at rgupta@californian.com.

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