VISTA — Vista Unified School District leaders are clashing over the next steps for magnet school Vista Innovation and Design Academy (VIDA), as some school board members argue that community members should have another chance to give input via a formal committee.
Following direction from the school board in early November, VIDA is preparing to move its programs from its current campus on Olive Avenue to the vacant Rancho Minerva Middle School, which closed last June, for the start of the 2025-26 school year.
These decisions came out of a school consolidation process conducted in mid-2023, with an asset management advisory committee (also known as a 7-11 committee) made up of district staff and parents recommending at the time to close Beaumont Elementary and Rancho Minerva Middle schools and relocate VIDA.
Several committee members have stated that they felt pushed toward making a recommendation predetermined by the district and were not permitted to discuss factors such as impacts on students and transportation.
While the former board majority agreed that relocating VIDA to Rancho Minerva was best, the board makeup has since changed, with only two of the original majority still on the board after the November election.
At the board’s Jan. 16 meeting, trustees Rena Marrocco and Sue Martin, elected in November, urged the board to reconvene the asset management advisory committee to make new recommendations.
“Basically, had we done this correctly from the get-go, we would not be in this situation right now … It was the district coming in with an agenda to get what it wants, without taking into consideration the very people we formed a committee to hear from,” Marrocco said. “Maybe we can just revisit this entire process to come up with a very fair outcome that will restore a good name and reputation with our community.”
Many community members have been upset by the decision to relocate VIDA, noting that the campus offers unique amenities such as a pool, theater and design labs, which Rancho Minerva lacks.
However, administrators say the district cannot afford the nearly $59 million in renovations needed for the 60-year-old campus to meet safety standards. Funds from the school’s 2018 Measure LL bond are all but dried up, and the district did not put another bond before voters in 2024 due to a lack of support from board members.
“We are expensed out of Measure LL funds … and Fund 40 is oversubscribed,” district COO Shawn Loescher said. “For the funds that are currently tied up, you would have to release those funds to release them to VIDA.”
District administrators and board members Cipriano Vargas and Martha Alvardo have also repeatedly insisted that while the consolidation process involved difficult choices, it was done appropriately.
The motion to reconvene the asset management advisory committee ultimately failed in a 2-2 vote. Marrocco and Martin were in favor, Vargas and Alvarado opposed, and new trustee Mike Markov abstained.
“They were very clear recommendations for that land, and that was a committee that was a Brown Act committee,” Alvarado said. “The intent to negate recommendations both by the long-range facilities master plan, by experts, and also the 7-11 committee, really puts this district in a financial situation that we cannot afford.”
Loescher said that as long as Rancho Minerva sits empty without a planned use, it is vulnerable to charter schools that can petition to use it for their own programs. He also noted that VIDA students cannot remain at the Olive Avenue campus long-term because it only has a few more years of usable life.
Martin said she is not advocating for the district to somehow come up with money to renovate VIDA but to slow down and ensure they are listening to the community.
“I’m talking about the process. That has to be redone, in order to keep trust with our community and to show respect and collaborate. We actually have to collaborate with them, and that didn’t happen,” Martin said.
Mario Bojorquez, who served as the committee’s vice chair, said he felt the asset committee was there to check off a box and provide the district with the answer they wanted. Reconvening the committee, he said, could be a positive step.
“I think it would be very helpful. A lot of us are interested in coming back to finish what we started,” Bojorquez said. “We had other recommendations for the district that were kind of pushed aside.”
The asset management advisory committee was told to consider only facility conditions when making their decisions and was not permitted to discuss factors such as impacts on students and transportation.
Bojorquez said that at the time, district leadership assured committee members that other committees would handle these topics. While he assumed these would be formal committees that would give recommendations to the board, this did not occur.
When asked about this by The Coast News, Loescher said, “Other groups, teams and/or committees did look at items such as transportation, school boundaries and magnet schools.”
While the district may have fulfilled state requirements for school consolidation by forming the committee, Bojorquez said the process left much to be desired.
“Doing the bare minimum isn’t something to be proud of,” Bojorquez said. “We’re afraid if people don’t speak out now, they’re just gonna repeat the process again.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated to correct a statement about the useful life of the Rancho Minerva campus. A previous version of the story incorrectly stated that Rancho Minerva should not be used long-term, when district officials were referring to VIDA.
