In an effort to attract new students and support low-income families that have long struggled to lock down housing, the northernmost school in Shoreline Unified School District, Bodega Bay Elementary, has applied for a $35,000 grant to pay for a preschool teacher who will work on its campus.
The grant is intended to give families an alternative to enrolling their children in Shoreline Acres Preschool in Tomales, which can be cost-prohibitive for some families, and to entice new families to Bodega Bay. Additional money to build a playground for preschool students is also being sought. (Under state law, playground space is required for preschools.)
“For [some] families, getting to Tomales is difficult,” said Nancy Wolf, the school’s part-time principal. “Paying the fees is difficult.”
Bodega Bay’s student body has fallen in recent years, from 26 in 2013-14 to 19 this past year, mirroring a larger decline in enrollment at Shoreline Unified. The school even faced the prospect of closure after the 2013-14 school year due to budget-cutting efforts by district trustees, but was saved when the district sought instead to trim teachers and staff through retirement incentives.
Now, the greatest threat to the school’s student body appears to lie in the inability of families to find affordable housing.
“It’s to the point where if a new family wanted to come to our school but didn’t have a place to live, I wouldn’t know where to send them,” said Carolyn Connors, the school’s former part-time instructional assistant and librarian who took a retirement package last year. “We’ve had families over the last three years that have searched for homes and it’s impossible.”
According to Richard Sorenson-Romero, the grandfather and guardian of two children at the school, around 10 families over the past year-and-a-half have had to move out of Bodega Bay.
“This is just wrong,” said Mr. Sorenson-Romero, who co-chairs the task force with Ms. Connors. “If we’re going to be able to have a viable school district, we’re going to have to have some
solutions.”
To address the housing issue, Ms. Connors, Mr. Romero-Sorenson and others involved with the school formed a task force for affordable housing earlier this month, in order to liaison with county
officials.
The task force has reached out to the Bodega Bay Area Chamber of Commerce for support. Patty Ginochio, the chamber’s president, said any rentals in Bodega Bay under $1,600 a month are no more than 500 square feet. She added that the crisis is hitting Latino workers the hardest—a significant point, given that Bodega Bay Elementary mimics the larger district’s student population in its Latino majority.
“Our Hispanic workforce cannot afford to live in Bodega Bay,” Ms. Ginochio said. “And if they do live here, they’re living in homes that are in need of some tender loving care, but still charge high rent.”
Although Ms. Ginochio and others do not expect the school to face closure as it did two years ago, she noted that property values would take a nosedive if the school ever did close. “The school is just a vital part of our community,” she said.