Mission Viejo Christian Moving to Empty O’Neill Elementary, Says Principal

Though Saddleback Unified officials say no final contract has been signed, Mission Viejo Christian School is getting ready to move onto the campus of the shuttered O’Neill Elementary School later this month, said its principal Mike McAteer.

If finalized the move could more than double the school's capacity and finally answer what will happen to the school building closed in 2009. It also means a private school will take over a building once intended for public use.

Staff and students at the campus of 212 students are abuzz with plans to move to the site when classes resume after winter break, Jan. 3, 2012. Mission Viejo Christian, which serves grades 1-8, will have room for 500 students, McAteer said.

The announcement came in a letter to MVCS parents dated Nov. 16. It reads:

"Your friends may be looking to find a solid, private, healthy Christian school where their children can excel with a full-service athletic field, science lab, indoor/outdoor stages, food service area and kitchen, large classrooms while still maintaining the small class size, large afterschool facilities for our Crusader Club, and a safe, gated campus facility... Please let them know that we are now open to take registrations for any spots not currently available that will be available in January."

This week, McAteer is juggling interviews with prospective families who want to enroll in January, while the school is also holding boys’ basketball tryouts this week at the O’Neill playground.

"We are just waiting for the (SVUSD) recreation department to move out of its offices," McAteer said. "Our commitment to every family is to see your child succeed and to serve you as a family well. We’re thrilled to be able to expand."

O’Neill Elementary, which was closed due to declining enrollment, is about one mile away from Mission Viejo Christian School.

Jeff Starr, director of business services for SVUSD, said Tuesday that the district is still negotiating the "fine print" with the private school, and that he expects the school board to consider approving a lease agreement at its monthly board meeting Dec. 13.

"If I had a signed contract in my hand, I would say it’s a done deal," Starr said Tuesday. "Our hope is all goes well, and then there is an approval from the board, and we move forward. If all goes well, we would enjoy having a relationship with them."

At its last board meeting Nov. 8, the school board voted to reject a bid from Mission Viejo Christian to lease the school for $10,000 a month.

But negotiations continued and, according to McAteer, district officials confirmed two days later, on Nov. 10, that MVCS was granted the lease. Neither McAteer nor Starr would say how much the school would pay to lease the site under a proposed agreement.

MVCS staff are preparing to move to O’Neill, and are planning some cosmetic changes such as replacing signage and painting doors burgundy red, McAteer said. (The school’s colors are red and gold.) McAteer said he is accepting resumes for new teachers as well.

Parents, meanwhile, say they are helping to prepare children for the mid-year transition to a new campus.

"We’ve been outgrowing our space for awhile, but some of us have had mixed emotions when we found out it was actually finally going to happen," said Susan Slevin, mother of a fourth- and sixth-grader who have both attended MVCS since age 3. "Change is always hard, but on the whole, everyone is really excited about the opportunity to grow."

Slevin, who lives in Foothill Ranch, said that her family loves MVCS because of its "amazing" teachers and families.

"They’re wonderful to one another. And there’s positive peer pressure here. It’s not cool to act out in a negative way, especially in junior high," Slevin said.

Noah Harb, a sixth-grader from Mission Viejo, said that he’s excited to move to a campus that actually has spacious fields and a playground with swings and a slide.

"It’s going to be good,” Harb said. "It’s going to be bigger."

The district closed O’Neill in 2009 during a contentious process that angered some Mission Viejo parents and drew a failed lawsuit from Mission Viejo’s City Council to try to stop the closure.

Then this February, the board approved a lease agreement with another private Christian school, Pathway School of Laguna Hills, to lease the site for $14,000 a month. But Pathway backed out of the deal.

In light of the controversy around O’Neill’s closure, McAteer said that both SVUSD and MVCS want to maintain good relationships with nearby homeowners.

"We want to be good neighbors because we live here," McAteer said.

In addition to housing the district’s Recreation and Community Services office, O’Neill Elementary has also been home to the Laguna Parent Participation Preschool. The preschool, which has a signed contract with SVUSD to lease the space, will remain at O’Neill, McAteer said.

Meanwhile, the move will allow the Mission Viejo Christian School’s preschool and afterschool programs to expand their own enrollment, McAteer said. Both those programs maintain long waiting lists and can move into MVCS’s former elementary and middle school classrooms, McAteer said.