Novato Group Organizes Against Possible Elementary School Closure

NOVATO, CA —An organized group has formed in Novato in opposition to the possible closure of Rancho Elementary School, a move it believes would disproportionately impact the city's American Asian and Pacific Islander community.

The group is holding ongoing rallies this week through Wednesday between 8 and 8:30 a.m. outside the school at Arthur Street and South Novato Boulevard hoping to mobilize public pressure on the Novato Unified School District.

Around a hundred students and parents gathered for Monday morning’s rally.

Rancho’s diverse community includes families who speak Vietnamese, Urdu, Khmer, Indonesian, Hindi, Telugu, and Tagalog, among other languages.

“Rancho has provided a healthy and safe environment for the Asian American families and welcomes people of all ethnic backgrounds,” Joanna King, the parent of Rancho two students, told Patch.

“How can they even think about breaking up this wonderful community?”

The rallies are being held ahead of a report from a NUSD advisory panel expected to be issued Wednesday night.

The NUSD empaneled the “7-11 Committee” to recommend the closure of one of the district’s eight elementary schools.

Rancho along with Lynwood and Lu Sutton were initially identified by the NUSD as potential closure candidates. The NUSD has since removed Lynwood from that list, The Marin Independent Journal reports.

The NUSD’s move to withdraw Lynwood from consideration followed organized opposition from a group that pointed to the impact of the school’s closure on Novato’s Latinx community.

The group opposed to Rancho's closure has posted an online petition that as of Monday afternoon had garnered more than 1,000 signatures.

According to a 2019-2020 enrollment ethnicity study published by the state’s Department of Education, Rancho boasts by far the largest Asian student population on a percentage basis.

The school’s 16.9 percent combined Asian and Filipino student population (the two groups are categorized separately by the state) is nearly triple the district’s (6.3 percent) and more than triple Marin County’s (5.2 percent).

A consulting group commissioned by the NUSD to help identify closure targets classified the school’s Asian and Filipino students as “other.”

This classification, in the estimation of those opposing Rancho’s closure, eliminates the possibility of evaluating the impact of the school’s closure on Novato’s Asian population.

“This type of ‘othering’ further deepens division and does not allow for all voices to be heard and accounted for and should not be tolerated,” the Rancho closure opponents wrote on their online petition.

Kings Consulting declined to comment on its classification of the school’s Asian student population as “other,” referring calls to the NUSD.

NUSD Superintendent Kris Cosca said in a statement to Patch that the breakdown of data by ethnicity/race initially presented to the 7-11 Committee on March 24 was condensed into three categories (White/Caucasian, Latinx, other) at its most recent meeting on April 21 in error.

Cosca said the data will be expanded at Wednesday’s meeting “to list applicable races/ethnicities.”

“Given the percentage of Asian students at Rancho Elementary School, this data should have been included,” Cosca said.

“This has been corrected going forward. We appreciate the community pointing out this error and we apologize for any harm this may have caused.”

Rancho closure opponents said failing to consider the impact of the school's closure on Novato’s Asian community would fly in the face of specific language in a resolution the NUSD passed March 30 in support of the AAPI community amid a surge of reported incidents of anti-Asian hate and violence.

“…the Novato Unified School District condemns hatred, xenophobia, harassment and violence towards people of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry and commits to creating a supportive, inclusive culture that fully embraces students of AAPI descent,” the resolution said.

Parents and students from both schools will hold a “Kid Rally” late Tuesday afternoon that aims to bring the community together after what’s anticipated to be a disappointing decision for the extended community of one of the two schools, Rancho parent Eva Gaborjak told Patch.

The Rancho/LuSutton Kid Rally will be held downtown at the Novato Town Hall Green from 4:30 to 5:30.

“As the 7-11 Committee continues to work towards a decision to select a school to close, both the Lu Sutton and Rancho communities would like to come together for a rally,” Gaborjak said.

“Regardless of the committee's final decision our kids will begin to merge together and we want to start the welcoming process now!”