The West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) board will press on at its special board meeting Wednesday, Dec. 1 to review the student survey results on rebranding and potential next steps.
The board will also hold another public hearing on the makeup of possible trustee voting areas, since the district is changing election systems. The agenda and Zoom link information for the virtual 6 p.m. meeting is available here.
Superintendent Toni Beal will present results from a survey sent out to students on high school rebranding, seeking further direction. The agenda report reveals that 52% of the surveyed student body prefers that the consolidated school be recognized as “Analy.”
That’s 602 students, compared to 368, or 32.1% who voted for “West County,” the current placeholder name the school goes by. The agenda report details 9.4% or 108 students voted to abstain and 6.1% or 70 students selected “other,” as in preference for another rebranding option not listed.
The survey raked in 93% participation with 1,148 total responses out of 1,403 total students. Per the report, 147 students were absent for the poll taken Nov. 18 and Nov. 19 and 108 students chose not to take the survey at all.
Trustees are tunneling their way toward a decision on rebranding and it’s anyone’s guess how many tight turns are left in the final weeks leading to January. Deciding by January allows the district the six months it would take to officially change the school’s name again by the time classes resume in the fall, Beal said in November.
Next, the board is slated to discuss the district’s Educator Effectiveness Block Grant expenditure proposal, to resurface for possible adoption at the Dec. 15 meeting. The agenda states that the grant finances “professional learning” for those teachers, paraprofessionals and administrators.
Districts have to adopt a plan by Dec. 30, 2021 explaining how they’d spend the money in order to get that money, which would flow from the fiscal year 2021-22 through 2025-26.
Finally comes the second public hearing on potential trustee voting areas mapped out by the district’s hired demographer, slated to present four options at the meeting. The agenda report said WSCUHSD is going to hold two more public hearings before voting for one of the proposed maps on Dec. 15.
If the board gets approval from the Sonoma County Committee on School District Organization, then the by-trustee area method would be used in the November 2022 general election, per the agenda report.
The last public hearing for community feedback on drafted maps was Nov. 10, when requests came in for more attention to communities of interest, other schools and natural borders. The four options to be considered at the meeting are presented here.
The by-trustee system splits the district into zones where those running for a trustee position can only be elected by the voters living in that area, too, while WSCUHSD’s previous at-large voting method let voters in the district vote for anyone running for a seat on the school board.
No matter where they live, trustees on the board now are to continue in their positions until the end of their terms, the agenda report notes.
