Guest Opinion | Amanda Getty: PUSD Board Must Do Right By Our Kids

When the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education voted on February 1 to temporarily relocate Longfellow Elementary School to the Jefferson campus for its 2025-26 school year modernization renovations, thereby necessitating PUSD break its lease of Jefferson to the City of Pasadena, it did so in apparent good faith.  

Anxious Longfellow families, teachers and staff filled the Elbie J. Hickambottom Board Room that evening after learning just 72 hours earlier of the Board’s intent to relocate Longfellow 20 minutes across town to Allendale, an underutilized campus in disrepair recently characterized by the neighborhood association as a “serious fire and safety hazard” and which Superintendent Blanco described as “needing a lot of work.” Only after hearing from the Longfellow community, which had not been consulted at all until that point, did the Board vote instead to terminate its lease with the city, allowing Longfellow to use the nearby Jefferson campus while its campus gets modernized. The lease, after all, was signed when PUSD had no need for that space, and it contains a termination clause designed precisely for the situation in which we now find ourselves. It was a win for our families, and proof of the power of collective action in response to governmental negligence. 

Last week, however, Longfellow learned of the Board’s intention to hold a re-vote on the matter at a special meeting — with rumors circulating that more than one Board member may now vote against terminating the Jefferson lease. Once again, our school’s future hangs in the balance. 

Longfellow is a vibrant Community School that centers innovative learning and whole-child, whole-family engagement for some of Pasadena’s most vulnerable students. And with opportunities like its Spanish language immersion and cultural magnet program and the Harmony Project/Pasadena Youth Orchestra’s music education program, Longfellow is becoming increasingly visible in Pasadena as an attractive public option for young families putting down roots in our city. It’s a center for empowerment and support with a focus on lifting up all. It is everything that is right about public school. 

A move to Allendale would fracture all of that. It is too far away from our neighborhoods, presenting a challenging commute for the majority of us (this will be true for every PUSD school east of Los Robles that will also need to move temporarily for Measure O upgrades.) Shouldn’t we do whatever we can to ensure children can keep closer to their current routines and busy working families aren’t overburdened? Staying closer at Jefferson would also allow us to stay actively involved in our school; moving across town threatens the growing family engagement that makes our school the important resource it is. Moving to Jefferson also makes the most financial sense for the District: it will save money on busing, and the campus will require less capital investment to be move-in ready.

More than 80% of our students come from socio-economically disadvantaged households; make no mistake, the burden of a cross-town move will fall disproportionately on these families. Attendance will fall, families will leave Longfellow, and families will leave the District. It’s a heartbreaking reality that we’re all scrambling to prevent. The Board must meaningfully listen to parent voices and prioritize student needs and wellness as the driving force behind all of its actions. Allendale would be a hardship for the Longfellow community, and it is not what parents, caretakers, students, or staff at our school support. We will fill Mr. Hickambottom’s board room again this Thursday, to urge our elected officials to stand by their February 1, 2024 vote and relocate Longfellow to Jefferson. We hope the greater community will join us in supporting children and families.

Amanda Getty is a PUSD Longfellow parent active with the PTA, and a resident of Pasadena, 91104.