Fish or cut bait

How disappointing it was to attend Thursday night's school board meeting. The gang that couldn't shoot straight was unprepared to make a decision that the whole community has been hanging on for the past three months.

Thanks to three board members, who seemed almost jubilant when they announced that no school was safe from closure, the process of pitting one school against another and neighborhood schools against alternative schools is beginning all over again. Board members are casually throwing out scenarios that make no logical sense except to frustrate a new set of parents, teachers and community leaders.

What kind of leadership is this? The school district has specific information about the enrollment numbers at every school in the Pleasant Valley School District and the location of where each of their students reside. Throwing out suggestions to close one of the largest neighborhood schools is irresponsible when you have alternative suggestions with less impact.

Use the data to determine school closures based first on the least amount of impact to students, then take into consideration the issues concerning the facilities that were investigated thoroughly by the 711 committee, and lastly factor in the impact to neighborhood schools versus alternative schools and make sure they are both impacted in the scenario.

The community is tired of this whole issue. We don't want to drag this out for another week, month or year. Please make a decision. We will all live. Seriously. M. Bouweraerts Camarillo