The ongoing limbo that’s clouded Georgia Brown Elementary School’s campus and enveloped the entire Paso Robles Joint Unified School District is here for the long haul.
What began as a response to an enrollment study that determined the campus should be closed due to its decreasing student population and unsafe structural conditions has evolved into a seemingly never-ending process thanks to a geologic anomaly recently discovered in the ground below campus, according to Superintendent Curt Dubost.
At the district’s Sept. 12 meeting, Assistant Superintendent Brad Pawlowski presented a letter from the California Geological Survey that outlined what the district would have to do if it chose to move forward with any large-scale renovations on the campus.
“Brad [confirmed] their demand that we investigate the suspected trace seismic anomaly further by digging the proposed trench on campus,” Dubost said. “[He] added they have verbally clarified the proposed trench must be within 50 feet of the proposed construction.”
He noted that because of this new information, the board did not—and could not—decide or give direction to dig a trench as it can’t be done during the school year.
“This would mean the trench would have to be in the front driveway/parking lot, between the buildings, or on the paved lunch areas. This makes it impossible to do during the school year,” he said. “It also means all previous cost estimates to dig the trench on or near the playfield are no longer viable.”
In the continued search for clarity on the situation, the district also planned to hold its first-ever newly formed District Advisory Committee meeting on Oct. 4, after New Times went to press, to discuss the current enrollment numbers at the 36th Street campus that houses Georgia Brown.
Over the summer, Dubost recommended that the district form the committee, arguing that this type of committee would be different from the 2021 committee that previously suggested the district close the school. He said it more closely follows state education proceedings and that it more clearly outlines what the committee can or cannot rule on—an issue that board members expressed confusion on regarding the 2021 committee.
“I created the erroneous impression excess capacity and possible [suggestion of] closure was not within their direction,” Dubost said. “The correct statement should have been they had not been tasked with identifying a specific school for closure.” Δ
This article appears in Oct 5-12, 2023.