Management of district may be too much for school board

The ongoing saga of school closures has plagued the Pleasant Valley School Board since the start of the new year. It's a problem created by declining student enrollment and exacerbated by teachers who want higher pay and parents who don't want to lose their neighborhood school.

Earlier this week the school board decided not to reverse its decision to close, relocate and restructure some district schools. Confused? So are a lot of people.

The issue- the overall management of the school district- seems to have gotten bigger than the school board can handle.

Before long, the board members will have to ask themselves whether they're the ones to handle the problem. Perhaps it's time to consider professional advice either from an independent adviser, the Ventura County Office of Education or officials in neighboring school districts.

Parents, teachers and the community at large are continually befuddled, frustrated and annoyed with the board's decisions, which seem to be made without taking all of the facts into consideration. Even the board members themselves seem to be frustrated with their own inability to make the most informed decision.

There's good reason so many superintendents and upper-level school administrators have earned their doctorates. Managing a school district, especially one faced with declining enrollment, takes an enormous amount of training, knowledge and experience.

Most school board members volunteer their own time to work very hard simply as a way to help support a local school district. A majority do so because they genuinely want to make their city's schools the best they can be for their children.

The problem, however, is that the ever-evolving challenges many California school districts face in the 21st century are too much for some school boards to handle. The Pleasant Valley School Board seems to be facing such a challenge. It needs to seriously consider referring the matter to more experienced advisers.

The community's faith in the board's decision-making ability appears to be at an all-time low. Some parents have said they are concerned that if the board cannot handle school closure issues, there's little chance it can manage unification. To most, though, it seems that the push to unify has lost its steam and the board's mismanagement of the issues currently facing the district has made unification an impossibility.

The Pleasant Valley School District is in trouble and the school board refuses to fire the flare gun to seek rescue. If not done soon, the ship will founder.