Parent Offers $50,000 to Save Buena Vista School, Calls District Figures Skewed

Parents are objecting to the proposed closure of 50-year-old , including one who says the district’s figures justifying the shutdown are “skewed.”

James Markham, a member of the School Closure Advisory Committee, said the decision the school board could make at its April 18 meeting wouldn’t benefit the city.

“These numbers are very skewed,” Markham said of the district’s estimate that it would save about $1 million a year by closing Buena Vista and another campus.

“When the numbers came out, I looked at them and they didn’t make sense,” said Markham, who offered as much as $50,000 of his own money to keep open the school where his second-grade daughter attends. “How does a school with the smallest population cost the most?”

faces a $5 million budget deficit. It’s also proposing to close the campus that houses .

“Buena Vista Elementary is the smallest school in all the surrounding areas,” CUSD Superintendent John Roach said in a prepared statement. “Serving 286 students, Buena Vista’s per-student cost is $2,053, which is nearly $800 more than the districtwide elementary school average of $1,263.”

After looking further into the numbers and meeting with both Roach and Devin Vodicka, assistant superintendent for business services, Markham said he found a glaring flaw.

“I sat down with Devin, went through the numbers and in 20 minutes found a $125,000 discrepancy. I believe it was the district psychologist who was housed to Buena Vista but didn’t only work there. They took that off.”

“If you look at the numbers on a cost-per-square-foot basis, it’s the second-cheapest school to run. In all the population figures, the district is not counting the preschool. The preschool has 90 students.”

Vodicka agreed that the preschool population was not being counted but said, “The preschool at Buena Vista is funded by district; it’s a special education program.”

He said staff did not include those students in the financial breakdown because the district has to provide those services no matter what.

However, the district is considering opening the preschool to non-special education students to bring in more money.

Other Buena Vista parents have been quoted as opposing the closure, including
Dan Hernandez, who told the North County Times in late March that he attended the school and wants his 3-year-old to go there.

“Why would you shut down such a great school?” he was quoted as saying.

Closing Buena Vista—recently named a School—would not be an easy decision for Roach or Vodicka.

“This is a big deal; we want to make sure we’re not just looking at today’s operational expense problem but also the future of the school district,” said Roach, who added, “it’s way more complicated [than] just looking at numbers. We don’t know what we are going to recommend on the 18th.”

Markham offered the district $30,000 to $50,000 of his own money to save Buena Vista.

“If there is a gap, where the operational cost is $350K and they will only pay $300K, I’ll personally pay the $50K.”

Said Vodicka: “We will keep his generous donation in mind.”

But there are more reasons behind the proposal. The district reports that it has lost 1,000 students in the past 10 years and $16 million in revenue over the past three years. 

“Currently we have empty seats in the north—Buena Vista, Jefferson and Hope, Magnolia, Kelly,” said Roach.

Roach said the School Closure Advisory Committee has recommended that if Buena Vista closes, students and staff would move as a group to Magnolia Elementary.

Markham and other parents said this is a safety concern.

“On the west side of Carlsbad Village Drive, there are no sidewalks. How are you going to get these kids to school safely? Devin, who has been very accommodating, checked with the city and the city said there is no money to put in sidewalks. Can the CUSD suggest safe routes? There is no plan in place for safety.”

Roach responded: “We have kids currently who walk to school a shorter distance to Buena Vista without a sidewalk. It’s an issue that’s not educational but a community issue.”

Markham, a businessman, also questioned why the district would pay $293,000 to operate for a year when it’s not even open, yet close Buena Vista which he said he was told by Vodicka would save an average of $330,000 a year.

“How do you build a school you know you can’t afford to operate?” Markham asked.

Vodicka said the two have nothing to do with each other. “We aren’t closing Buena Vista so we can open Sage Creek. We have current problems with or without Sage Creek. We’d still be making dramatic and painful budget reductions.”

The decision to close Buena Vista is not a process welcomed with open arms, said Vodicka who along with Roach have been poring over data for weeks.

“It’s a complicated process,” said Vodicka. We want the recommendation to be as well-informed as possible.”

Can’t make it to the ? Patch will live stream the meeting beginning at 6 p.m.