Community Alliance for

Responsible Education (C.A.R.E.)

IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:

April 22, 2021 Scott A. Lewis, Attorney at Law
lewis@perrylaw.net
(707) 525-8800

COMMUNITY ALLIANCE FOR RESPONSIBLE EDUCATION (C.A.R.E.)

FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST WEST SONOMA COUNTY UNION HIGH
SCHOOOL DISTRICT (WSCUHSD) OVER MARCH VOTE TO CLOSE EL
MOLINO HIGH SCHOOL
Forestville, CA – The Community Alliance for Responsible Education (C.A.R.E.) filed a lawsuit with the
Sonoma County Superior Court today against the West Sonoma County Union High School District
(WSCUHSD), following the School Board’s March 10, 2021 vote to close El Molino High School.

Scott A. Lewis, an attorney with the Santa Rosa law firm Perry, Johnson, Anderson, Miller & Moskowitz, LLP,
announced the filing on behalf of the C.A.R.E. group, challenging the School Board’s March 10th vote to
close El Molino High School and a series of missteps the District made leading up to the vote in violation of
the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

At issue are a multitude of items related to the closure of the 553-student campus in the unincorporated
community of Forestville, including: the District’s decision to pursue a CEQA exemption regarding potential
consolidation months before the school board’s March 10th vote for consolidation, inconsistent with the
requirements of CEQA; the District’s failure to consider any environmental review, such as a study of the
traffic impacts to the City of Sebastopol with an influx of more than 500 new students to Analy High School,
generating up to 1,000 new, daily one-way traffic trips; contradicting information on school and student
enrollment capacities made during public meetings by the District Superintendent; and discussions the
School Board held prior to their March 10th vote to close El Molino High School, discussions that included
significant, long-term investments of up to $195 million to create a “superschool” at the Analy High
campus, with potential future expansion through the acquisition of adjacent parcels to the existing campus.
Based on the School Board’s vote, El Molino, a 40-acre campus in an unincorporated rural community
whose local businesses depend on the continued presence of 500+ students and their families frequenting
the area during school and extracurricular activities, will become home to less than 100 Laguna High School
students, along with the District’s administrative offices. Analy, meanwhile, will absorb many of the 553
students currently attending El Molino and see their student body balloon to nearly 1,700 students,
beginning in the 2021-22 school year.

“Through our engagement with concerned citizens and through an in-depth evaluation of statements and
presentations made by administrative staff and the Board of Trustees, there are serious missteps the
District and Board have made over the last several months,” said Lewis, the attorney representing the
newly-formed C.A.R.E. group. “Due to the district’s failure to heed citizen concerns and take a more
thoughtful, reasonable approach to a potential school consolidation and closure, we’ve concluded the only
 Community Alliance for
Responsible Education (C.A.R.E.)

way for the Board and District to understand the ramifications of their missteps in this situation is through a
court of law,” Lewis added.

Jessalee Mills, a Forestville resident, attorney and founding member of C.A.R.E., remarked that “we are
confident that the misguided direction that the District Superintendent has led the School Board down will
shed light on the truly disastrous decision-making process that got us to this point.” Mills went on to note
that, “the three Trustees who voted for school closure are now the subject of a burgeoning recall effort,
and their total lack of leadership and ability to listen to the resounding calls to keep El Molino open has
unnecessarily divided the community. There were clear alternatives that were more of a win-win for our
community that the Board, and District, glossed over to instead pursue their grand plan to pump hundreds
of millions of dollars into one of three District high school campuses in the City of Sebastopol, where the
three Trustees who voted to close our rural high school happen to live.”

The Board’s quiet rollout regarding the potential closure of El Molino High School beginning in Fall 2020 led
to an outpouring of support for the school from residents across Western Sonoma County. County
Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, recognizing the Board’s failure to think innovatively and creatively, approached
the District with two funding opportunities, which included a $48 per parcel per year tax, known as
Measure A, and Measure B, a 4% increase in transient occupancy taxes (TOT) at West County lodging
facilities and vacation rentals, with the District benefitting from a portion of those proceeds. Both measures
received majority ‘Yes’ votes, but fell short of the 2/3 supermajorities required to pass specific taxes at the
ballot box.

Gillian Hayes, a Forestville resident, El Molino Boosters Vice President of 6 years, Forestville School
Education Foundation Vice President of 12 years, current and future Elmo parent, and another founding
member of C.A.R.E. noted that on March 30th (just 20 days after the School Board voted to close El Molino
High School to plug a $1.2 million deficit on a controversial 3-2 vote), the District would be receiving more
than $1.8 million in state COVID-related and stimulus funding, some of which was unrestricted, with
another infusion from federal sources including the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan totaling well over
a million dollars. “Earlier on, the Superintendent made clear through a Board resolution and promise to our
community that if $750,000 or more in new funding was identified, the District and School Board would
revisit the topic of school consolidation and closure. Since that statement and following their March 30th
meeting, after millions in new funding has been identified with disbursements beginning in May and August
2021, the District and Board have been virtually silent on the use of these funds, beyond vague references
that indicate they’re standing by their deeply-flawed previous decisions despite the opportunity to use
stimulus funding to stop or even slow down the consolidation process.”

Community support has always existed in deep West Sonoma County. Prior to the attempts to enhance
revenues to WSCUHSD schools in 2021, the School District, with support from residents across Western
Sonoma County, passed another parcel tax at the ballot box on March 3, 2020, generating $1.8 million
annually for elective course offerings, extracurricular activities and related programs for District students.
District voters also authorized a $91 million school bond in 2018 for all three WSCUHSD schools (El Molino,
Analy and Laguna); more than $73 million of those funds remain unspent, fueling speculation about the
District’s plans to invest remaining funds into the Analy High School “superschool” campus that has not yet
been analyzed in compliance with CEQA.
###