Pleasant Hill Parents Urge MDUSD to Stop Sending Kids to Concord

For the past six years, a group of Pleasant Hill parents have urged the Mt. Diablo Unified School District to send their kids to College Park High School, rather than some to Concord's Ygnacio Valley High.

But because of the district's strange relationship to both schools, often many students who went through Pleasant Hill Elementary and Pleasant Hill Middle School wound up attending high school in Concord. This caused a lot of families to move to neighborhoods where their kids could continue attending school in Pleasant Hill.

This part of southern Pleasant Hill has been called 'the grey area,' for its not-quite black and white relationship to the two schools. The area encompasses Main Street to the east, San Louis Road to the south, Taylor Boulevard to the north, and Roberta Avenue to the west. 

On Monday night, the MDUSD board is set to clarify the area as that in which students will automatically attend College Park. 

And that, for parents like Cindy Rubin, is a long-fought-for triumph. 

"There's been uncertainly since 1980 when they closed Pleasant Hill High," Rubin said. "Every year was always the big thing for those whol attended Pleasant Hill Elementary, about where they would go to High school--Ygnacio Valley or College Park. We feel that Collge Park is our high school, it's part of where our community is."

Rubin and a group of parents have been asking the district for the past six years to bring some clarity, and a new name, to the area. They won the right to fill out an option form a few years ago, which was an improvement. 

But, Rubin asked, what sense did it make to fill out a form when residents of Pleasant Hill should just automatically attend high school in Pleasant Hill

So on Monday, the board will consider a recommendation from the superintendent to end the 'grey area,' and allow those who wish to attend Ygnacio Valley High to apply for an intradistrict transfer.  

"There’s plenty of room at Ygnacio Valley for people who want to go there," Rubin said.

And how does it feel to be crossing the finish line after all this time?

"It's been a slow, glacial pace, but it looks like we finally got there," Rubin said.

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