It was a funeral, complete with a bagpipe player. The corpse was the brick edifice known as O’Neill Elementary School, a facility whose history is synonymous in time and spirit with the birth of Mission Viejo. It was, after all, the City’s first school.
Councilmember Trish Kelley attempted to console the weeping mourners by making an object lesson from the school’s closure. She told the children, ”life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you make the best of it.”
After the MV Council’s half-hearted and failed support for O’Neill, and the Mayor’s unconstructive tone with the SVUSD Board, it seemed incongruous when Kelley portrayed her council majority as valiant but unfortunate defenders of the families.
Dr. Fish did not address the ceremony, and only Kathy Dick appeared to represent the SVUSD hierarchy. She seemed anxious to put the ordeal behind.
Although the District attributes the closing to declining enrollments within the District, SVUSD seems to need more administrative largess. Despite the sizeable SVUSD administrative complex on Peter Hartmann Way, it appears O’Neill will become additional administrative space for Dr. Fish’s recreational department.
The students meanwhile are being split and redistributed among three other District elementary schools next year.
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I was at the funeral and the eulogies by the city and district official(s) were just as described above . . . a day late, a dollar short, and weak.
It is like going to a funeral of a dear friend, and the doctor who gave the wrong meds to the patient gets up to speak and says he did all he could to save the patient. I guess if “10% is what happens to us,” then we are sad that our friend died; and if “90% is how we deal with it,” we should file a malpractice suit.
O’Neill Elementary was a stellar school that anchored one of our oldest neighborhoods. She was a great member of the community, a safe haven for our children, won all sorts of awards for excellence in education, and was put to rest today before her time.
It is not a time to celebrate, but to mourn one of our best community members; Marguerite M. O’Neill Elementary School. She will be missed by many.
The closing ceremony was a symbolic closure only, and a pyrrhic victory for Dr. Fish and the current four Board members who reversed themselves under pressure, never listening to reason from their experienced counterpart, Dr. Gilbert; and never listening to their own hearts on what was right for the greater District.
Hard work could see O’Neill rise again as a leading charter school serving all the Saddleback Valley, but this Board again refused to listen, bent on the wreckage they blindly sought to cause our schools and our neighborhoods. They also certainly had no sense of the history and power of the Mission Viejo Master plan which brought great education and great families seeking award winning schools like O’Neill.
Now, it remains to be seen if the City Council will answer the call to defend the school system of Mission Viejo, or hand off the beacon of greatness built and achieved here, to be dimmed by feeding the greater Saddleback Valley from the Average Daily Attendance funds of the children of our city.
We are not strapped with heavy Mello Roos fees, and the surrounding communities should not be pulling away our students and shutting our schools because their tax base and education system is inadequate, mismanaged, and overall ill-conceived – made worse by the management of the current administration and majority on the Saddleback School Board. Will this city council step up and act to protect our schools and our neighborhoods?
What could be a clearer time to act to save Mission Viejo Schools than when a Board refuses to serve the wishes or needs of the citizens and closes a top performing historic neighborhood school in our first neighborhood? This council better act strongly, and fast. Meanwhile plans are underway to save the school and the neighborhood. Go to ONeillCharterSchool.org and see how you can help.
Lets hope the legacy of this City Council is not the death of our school system and the destruction of the neighborhoods we share and love. Meanwhile, get involved and take action and don’t forget the actions of this Board of Ed at election time.
Don’t be fooled by Trish Kelley’s “Pontius Pilate” act at the closing of O’Neill school. Kelley’s maudlin speech made me sick. Neither Kelley or Ury were vocal or even present at the first meetings concerning this closure. Only Council person Schlicht addressed the board in those formative meetings. I know personally that Ury was told to get it in gear at the early stages of this decision making process. Ury chose not to act!!
Dr. “Invisible” Fish did not even have the courage or courtesy to speak–or most likely present, at the closing of the school. The absence of any board member at the closing of the school should also be so noted by the community. The school board collectively obviously lacks the courage of the convictions. Their collective absence sends a message–they just don’t care.