PACIFIC BEACH –
San Diego's smallest public elementary school is scrambling to reinvent itself as a music academy by September.
With fewer than 130 students, Crown Point Elementary School in Pacific Beach has been tops on the list of potential campus closures for years.
Now the San Diego Unified School District wants to market the school to students who attend charter and private schools, in addition to those from other neighborhoods and districts.
Tentatively dubbed Crown Point Junior Music Academy, the new magnet program will solicit applications in the waning weeks of summer. Under the new themed curriculum, the school would offer string music, beginning with its earliest grades, including a new preschool program.
The district is banking on the appeal of music instruction negating the inconvenience of the short notice it's giving to parents.
“Our magnets with the longest waiting lists are our performing arts schools; they are by far our most popular,” Superintendent Terry Grier said.
Oak Park Elementary School is the only district magnet with a comprehensive elementary music program. Districtwide, all elementary students are offered instrumental music lessons, typically in the fourth and fifth grades.
A team from the district is working to secure the staff, supplies and modifications to the Crown Point campus needed for the transformation in the coming weeks.
The San Diego school board authorized the go-ahead for the project at its July 7 meeting and is expected to formally vote on the project early next month.
The district has a budget deficit of about $53 million. But Chief Financial Officer Bill Kowba said establishing a music program may be affordable.
“If we are talking about moving students from somewhere else in the district, we move staff as well,” Kowba said. “Putting a small magnet in a small school where much of the resources are in place may simply be about shifting resources we already have.”
Preliminary plans call for Suzuki violin lessons in preschool, kindergarten and first grades in September, with an additional grade added each year. However, all students would receive some music instruction in the fall.
Crown Point students would have the option of continuing their music education at either Pacific Beach Middle School or the Creative Performing Media Arts Middle School, where they would get a priority for admittance.
The new Crown Point would be a “world class facility” that would eventually include a modern performing arts auditorium and rehearsal rooms to be paid for with a potential bond measure on the November ballot, Grier said.
Trustee John de Beck, who represents Pacific Beach, said he supports the concept – as long as the district sticks with it.
“Crown Point was going to be a marine biology school, it was going to be a Montessori and a whole lot of other things,” he said. “Let's just tell the community what it's going to be – and then do it.”
The district plans to hold a parent meeting about the plans for Crown Point next week. For information on how to apply to the magnet school, call San Diego Unified's school innovation and choice office at (858) 627-7408.
Meanwhile, the district plans to revamp other schools with small enrollments, said Rich Cansdale, chief school innovation & choice officer.
For example, a plan is in the works to bring a dance and drama program to Cadman Elementary School near Clairemont.
Maureen Magee: (619) 293-1369; maureen.magee@uniontrib.com
