Pacifica high schools have gotten smaller

That includes the often sensitive question of enrollment. It’s particularly nettlesome when student numbers are falling.

Take a look at the two public high schools in Pacifica: Terra Nova and Oceana. According to the state’s official data, the former has just 748 pupils while the latter checks in at 585.

Together, they equal a typical, midsized Peninsula public secondary school at 1,333 youngsters. For some perspective, in 2008, the enrollment figures for Terra Nova and Oceana were 1,419 and 648 respectively, a total of 2,067, according to available records.

A 2020 district demographic analysis has projected that enrollment at Terra Nova and Oceana will increase to 777 and 626 by 2026. 

In particular, Terra Nova, located in a valley east of Highway 1 and Rockaway Beach, has fallen on hard times when it comes to teens in the classroom.

Potential reasons for Terra Nova’s lack of students (Oceana has been planned as a small school since it was reopened years ago) include: The impact of private, parochial and charter schools; fewer eighth graders provided by Pacifica’s public middle school, Ingrid B. Lacy; and, of course, the pandemic.

What to do? Should one of these Jefferson Union High School District schools on the coast be closed? Should they be merged? Should administrators be shared for the sake of efficiency? Should empty space be leased to private enterprises?

Rosie Tejada, president of the Jefferson Union High School Board of Trustees, said none of the above is on the table, at least not now. Why? The virus. “We are focused on COVID,” she stated last week.

“There are no plans for closure, it is not a consideration,” she emphasized. “We are looking at the present. ” And nothing overshadows the present quite like the pandemic.

As for the future, well, that remains to be seen.

SERVING VIA GEOGRAPHIC AREA: Meanwhile, in the San Mateo Union High School District, trustees there are getting ready to implement a new plan to elect board members by five designated, defined geographic areas.

In one important sense, it’s been a long time coming. Too often, the district’s two northern-most communities, Millbrae and San Bruno, have had no one from either of those cities serving on that governing body. 

At no time was the situation more stark and controversial than in 1980 when the trustees (three from Burlingame/Hillsborough and two from San Mateo) decided to close Crestmoor High School in San Bruno rather than Burlingame High School due to declining enrollment and budgetary concerns.

With no one from Millbrae or San Bruno on the board back then, there was strong feeling that the eventual 4-1 vote was ordained right from the outset of deliberations.

In theory, if the current proposed plan had been in effect in those days, the board’s credibility might have been enhanced and, perhaps, a bitter aftertaste of betrayal would not have lingered as long as it did. 

CSM IS HALL OF FAME MECCA: How many U.S. community colleges can boast of having three individuals enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame? The College of San Mateo is one.

With the recent induction of ex-CSM coach Dick Vermeil into the Hall of Fame, the local two-year college has three such honorees. The late John Madden and Bill Walsh are the other two.

Madden and Walsh were former football players at CSM. Vermeil moved to the college early in the 1960s after coaching at nearby Hillsdale High School.

He then went on to bigger things as the head coach at UCLA and, later, in the National Football League. He was a success at every level.

BURLINGAME RESTAURANTS SOLD: Two more local restaurants have been sold. Both are located on Burlingame Avenue in that community’s downtown.

Copenhagen Bakery & Cafe and Sixto’s Cantina have new owners. The latter closed late last week after less than a decade of existence. It’s not clear what will replace it. Its parklet has been removed.

Copenhagen remains unchanged and open for business as it has for 45 years.  

Email John Horgan at johnhorganmedia@gmail.com.