Paso school district to close Georgia Brown campus 

The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District (PRJUSD) will no longer house students at Georgia Brown Elementary following the conclusion of the 2023-24 school year.

"It is time to come together, with all the good and the bad, and make a tough decision to move forward and put this behind us," board President Nathan Williams said at the Jan. 23 board meeting, when the board voted 6-1 to end the limbo Georgia Brown was in for years.

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• File Photo By Jayson Mellom
• MOVING ON Georgia Brown Elementary is closing at the end of the 2023-24 school year after the Paso Robles school board voted 6-1 on Jan. 23 to end the campus' state of limbo.

Georgia Brown was first recommended for closure in 2021 following declining enrollment and unsafe building structure, but parents pushed back. In 2022, the board opted to renovate the campus to make it safer for students, but that endeavor was halted when state officials discovered a geological anomaly was beneath the school site.

With its decision to close the campus, the Paso school board now has to figure out where to put Georgia Brown's dual immersion students. A large portion of the students could be moved to one of two middle school campuses—Flamson or Lewis.

However, neither campus can accommodate all of the students, according to Nathan Williams, meaning some of the currently enrolled students will have to be moved to other schools.

"The committee has made it clear that none of our campuses have the capacity to contain the entire program, so we need to make some changes," he said at the meeting. "There is not one decision that will not bring pain and discomfort to one community or the other."

District board member Sondra Williams, who was the only one to vote against the move, expressed concern that reconfiguring the entire district to accommodate a dual immersion program would have adverse effects on everyone involved.

"I am hoping that as we go forward, staff researches the impact reconfiguring these campuses will have on students and parents who have kids already enrolled," she said at the meeting. "It does not seem fair that any student should have a subpar experience because these campuses we are considering do not have the capacity."

Nathan Williams lamented the fact that the choice would make it seem like the district was prioritizing dual immersion students over others. But, he added, the board would need to make a hard decision about it on Feb. 13—the district's next meeting—nonetheless.

"Right now we have a reasonable option to make a decision as a board and move forward with it," Nathan Williams said. Δ