Paso's dual immersion students will move to Lewis for 2024-25 

Students enrolled in Georgia Brown Elementary's dual immersion program will call Lewis Middle School home starting next school year.

On Feb. 13, the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District board voted 5-2, with board members Kenney Enney and Joel Peterson dissenting, to move students to the new campus.

"The magnitude of this decision is huge," board president Nathan Williams said at the meeting. "Staff has put in amazing time. ... This is still extremely tough."

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• Photo By Jayson Mellom
• NEXT STEPS Paso Robles school district administrators will have their hands full as they work to accommodate the transfer of students from the Georgia Brown campus to the Lewis Middle School campus.

The board decided to move the students to Lewis after considering the cost and current accommodations the campus had for the district's dual language immersion program.

With around 400-plus dual immersion students headed to a new campus, the district now has to reorganize Lewis Middle School's current population to accommodate them.

"These things have a ripple effect," Enney said at the meeting. "I don't like playing survivor with the community, which is exactly what we are doing."

Students attending Lewis Middle School will move to another campus, Flamson Middle School. The K-6 dual immersion students will take over the current Lewis campus. In addition, the district will readjust its kindergarten and first grade boundaries to accommodate the new elementary school location at Lewis.

Enney said that all of these adjustments mean that kids currently enrolled at any of these campuses will have to readjust the way they get to school, which for some students is already difficult in the current district setup.

Seventh-grade student Ann Elise Lambeth wrote to District Superintendent Curt Dubost about why the district's choice would impact her education.

"I know many students who go to Lewis in the first place is because their family is in a situation where they cannot get to Flamson," Lambeth wrote. "A majority of parents from Georgia Brown want their kids at Flamson because it is easier to get them there, the original site was originally a three-minute drive whereas Lewis would be over a 10-minute drive with the usual traffic."

Dubost acknowledged that the district did not have the transportation options that the transferred students might need. He felt that transportation would be his biggest concern in choosing the next superintendent, as he's retiring at the end of the school year.

"My staff even came to me and expressed they are reluctant to suggest options like this because I won't be here next year, and they will take the flak I won't be around to take," he said at the meeting.

But the district had to make a choice, he said, adding that whatever comes next will be handled to the best of the district's ability.

"I don't see a better option than putting the dual immersion at Lewis and moving the junior high to Flamson," he said at the meeting. "I do know that if the board directs staff to get transportation for these changes, it may involve contracting, it may involve moving heaven and earth, but if you tell them what to do, they will make it so." Δ