One Citywide, Unified School District

By C. Howell Ellerman

Local Control of Our Schools, Too

The result is that the school district boundaries do not follow the logical and organic manner in which our towns develop. When this happens, there can be dislocations of students as school disstricts atttempt to balance their student load among their various schools.

Such an issue has occurred recently in El Dorado Hills, where overcrowding at Oak Ridge High School has led the El Dorado Union High School District to examine alternative district boundaries that would send a large portion of El Dorado Hills students to either Union Mine High School in Shingle Springs, or to Ponderosa High School in Cameron Park.

Just as El Dorado Hills is unique among El Dorado County communities, so too our our schools. We want to keep our kids within our communities, since this is where they developed school friendships, relationships and even competitive rivalries with schools they are now being asked to adopt as their own.

In meeting with El Dorado County Superintendent of Schools Vicky Barber, I learned of there is a logical, if complex, political process that local residents can undertake to create new school boundaries. Generally speaking, the process involves petitioning the County Board of Education to allow for a local school district, a study to determine any adverse financial or socioeconomic affects and how to mitigate them, and then a vote of the people to create the district. This process mirrors, in school-district politics, what has had to occur in order for the City of El Dorado Hills to be created.

The first step to creating a unified K-12 school district in El Dorado Hills is for the city to become incorporated. Then, with the political boundary established, a move to a unified school district is a logical next step. I am committed to pursuing such a consolidation of our school districts, and to make our unified school district one of world-class achievement, just like our city will be.