Eberhart Explains Westwood Plan

Mount Diablo Unified School Board president Gary Eberhart explained the rationale he used in coming up with his proposal to make school a sixth-grade-only school in a blog post this morning. This is what he said:

"The rationale for considering Westwood is because the closure of Westwood would allow Glenbrook to be moved as a whole school population to El Dorado and the site currently known as Westwood. This would allow Glenbrook students to remain together instead of being split into three schools. It would also allow the students of Glenbrook to continue to benefit from the $1,100,000 School Improvement Grant that they are now receiving.

"The closure of Westwood Elementary would have all students attending Mountain View Elementary, once again keeping an entire school population together.

"If we close Silverwood Elementary, those students would be split amongst three receiving schools. The three receiving schools for Silverwood students will be Ayers, Mountain View and Highlands.

"Sherry and I made the proposal for the Board and Community to consider the option of closing Westwood and allowing the Glenbrook students and El Dorado students to utilize the combined campuses of El Dorado and Westwood. We did so in order to present an alternative to splitting up Glenbrook into three receiving schools and splitting up Silverwood into three pieces. It also allows the students to continue to benefit from the $1.1 million in SIG funding.

"The more we look at this plan the more we see that there are modifications that can be made to improve it. For instance, there are a number of students who attend Glenbrook who would actually be closer to Oak Grove Middle School, so maybe we should give those students the option of attending Oak Grove. There are students who are closer to Monte Gardens than they are to Mountain View, so maybe we should give those students the option of attending Monte Gardens. We are continuing to look at the options in front of us as a way to improve the overall plan."

For more information, read the reast of the blog post here.