Districts agree to pursue unification fact-finding process

Board members of the Menifee Union School District and Perris Union High School District discuss a plan for unification. Menifee 24/7 photo: Doug Spoon

Board members of two school districts agreed Tuesday to accelerate the process required to consider forming a Menifee Unified School District.

The meeting at the Menifee Union School District office was a study session and did not require a vote, but members of the Perris Union High School District were generally in agreement with Menifee trustees that the exploratory steps toward a petition for unification should be taken.

The movement to give Menifee a K-12 unified school district has been discussed for more than 25 years. In 2008, officials of both the MUSD and PUHSD passed resolutions to petition the state for such action. Not all of the state-mandated criteria for reorganization were met, however, and when a recession hit, both districts asked that the petition be held in abeyance.

A lot has changed since then. Menifee's population has exploded to the point that a new high school is required to handle the increased enrollment. Data required to satisfy the nine criteria for unification is now outdated. Funding for the new high school is only 50 percent achieved and will rely on another PUHSD bond measure in November to facilitate groundbreaking as early as February.

All these factors will be considered as each district board updates its own data, discusses in detail the ramifications of unification and prepares for a new petition to re-institute the process.

Paul Jessup, deputy superintendent with the Riverside County Office of Education, explained the unification process to board members. It requires an analysis of data within each district as it applies to nine criteria, including number of enrolled pupils, community identity, division of property and facilities, changes in cost, and others. A consultant is often hired to analyze the data before a decision is made to present it to the County Superintendent, Jessup said.

The districts may choose one of two paths to unification: Submit the petition through a process that sends it to the state Board of Education for approval or submit it to the County Committee on School District Reorganization. Either way, Jessup said, the process will take two years or more.

All parties agree that unification would be tied to the construction of a new high school, to be built on property purchased by PUHSD on Leon Road north of Scott Road. The PUHSD board this week approved a $148 million bond measure for the November ballot, with plans to devote half that amount to the new high school and the other half to other schools in PUHSD.

"We would make sure the projects that benefit from the bond measure match the assessed value," said Candace Reines, deputy superintendent for PUHSD. "No taxpayer would be left to pay the debt of another school district."

This means that Menifee residents would be taxed for only the half of the funds that go toward their own school.

Officials are confident the ballot measure will pass. If it doesn't, and construction of the new high school is further delayed, there will be virtually nowhere to put the increase of students that already is overcrowding Paloma Valley and Heritage High School. Also, unification of the Menifee district apparently would not take place, because Menifee would need at least one more high school in addition to Paloma Valley. PUHSD officials have already decided to keep Heritage High in their district along with Perris High School.

Any such district reorganization impacts finances. Loss of a school reduces the funding the district receives from the state for care of its students. On the other hand, adding a school brings with it additional costs.

Both board chairmen -- Ron Ulibarri of MUSD and Jose Luis Araux of PUHSD -- asked PUHSD superintendent Grant Bennett why his district would want to give up two high schools to help MUSD make this happen.

"We know we have to house the students," Bennett said. "We have to get the new high school built. We will move forward as if the new school would be in PUHSD forever, even though we know unification could happen.

"We would love to run all the high schools that belong to us, but if Menifee is asking to be unified, we don't want to stand in their way. We just know we have to built the high school no matter what, simply to house all the students."

Reines acknowledged that both districts would need to adjust their level of staffing if such a reorganization is made. That is just another factor both district boards must consider as they update the data needed to re-submit a petition for unification of the Menifee district.

MUSD board member Randy Freeman suggested that because the new high school wouldn't open until at least 2021 and the unification process apparently would take at least that long, the effort to re-submit a petition should begin now.

"Look at what has to happen," Freeman said. "You pass the bond, break ground on the school in February, open in 2021, they (PUHSD) administer it for the first two years, then they turn it over to us. That timeline seems to fit pretty well with all the information we've received today. It's all going to depend on passing the bond."

No date was set for a second meeting between the district boards, but both sides agreed to continue discussing the situation on their own and gather the necessary data.