What’s happening to Carrisa Plains middle schoolers isn’t new—it’s the latest chapter in a long, painful pattern of rural divestment by in-town agencies.
When the Atascadero Unified School District (AUSD) removed sixth through eighth grade from Carrisa Plains Elementary, it didn’t just disrupt families—it replaced local learning with a 100-mile-a-day bus ride.
Examples of that painful pattern of rural divestment include the closure of the SLO County’s Public Works Department’s road yard on the Carrisa Plains in the late 1990s. In 2014, the SLO County Library shuttered the Pozo Branch, followed by the Simmler Branch in 2019—both having served their communities for more than 80 years. Earlier efforts to close the Simmler Branch were halted by a direct appeal of the librarian to the county Board of Supervisors, while attempts to shut down the Creston Branch were blocked by the patrons of the library, who pitched in to pay the librarian’s salary and successfully lobbied to keep it open.
Each cut to a rural school or loss of a rural library erases decades of community effort and pride. Rural property owners contribute substantial property tax revenue directly to AUSD each year, yet they’re told the busing is about efficiency or that it is beneficial to the students. Parents and community members disagree.
AUSD now calls restoring grades six through eight at Carrisa Plains Elementary “complex” or would set a “precedent.” Yet their entire busing policy rests on a single PowerPoint slide presented to the AUSD board by a citizens’ advisory committee in January 2012—hardly justification for years of disruption that deepen the pattern of rural divestment. I respectfully call on AUSD to restore K through eight education at the Carrisa Plains Elementary beginning with the 2025-26 school year.
Gregory Nelson
Carrisa Plains eighth grade class of 1988
California Valley/Bremerton
This article appears in Pride 2025.