After a lengthy discussion amid a packed chamber, Pasadena Unified School District trustees on Thursday night voted to reject receipt of a key report on the district’s controversial proposal to merge schools, essentially halting the ongoing consolidation process.
They then moved to a discussion about potential next steps, acknowledging the flaws and lack of trust in a process that had been ongoing since early this year.
“The integrity of the process, the way that it has been flawed, it lacks the trust of the community,” Trustee Michelle Richardson Bailey said. “We need to drop this. We need to start with a brand-new process.”
The stunning pause over a consultant’s equity impact analysis came well into a marathon meeting in which Board President Tina Fredericks and Trustee Scott Harden were served notices of intent to recall during a fiery meeting Thursday night, May 28, and in which they denied any collusion with the district’s consultant, which had been exploring consolidation with a special committee.
The analysis had concluded that no student groups would be disproportionately harmed by any of the proposed campus closure scenarios, which have roiled the district for weeks. Instead, it formally echoed a theme long held by the district’s consultants at local meetings: That controversial proposals to merge certain schools into others would actually expand school programs.
But many district stakeholders were skeptical of the analysis in the face of questions over the process that led to Thursday night’s meeting.
Fredericks and Harden were served the intent-to-recall notices during public comment, in what was the first public hearing since an advisory committee recommended against any school mergers.
Two PUSD parents, Dawn Denison and Marisol Tansey, walked the notices up to the trustees at the conclusion of their comments. More than 75 speakers spoke on the ongoing consolidation process, most of them against any mergers.
“Tonight, I am here to formally serve District 4 board member Scott Harden with a notice of intent to recall,” Tansey said, adding that Harden, who represents District 4, has “fundamentally broken our trust.” She cited what she said was Harden’s apparent support in public records of a consolidation plan behind closed doors, even after several years ago being against consolidation.
“This recall is about restoring accountability, and ensuring the District 4 families finally have a voice,” Tansey said.
The board members did not respond immediately, which is normal protocol during public comment.
About 15 people urged trustees to push forward with consolidation because of the declining enrollment and need to act in the face of a financial crisis.
“Consolidation is a very painful process for students, families, teachers and administration,” Pasadena resident and retired LAUSD teacher Mimi Fitzgerald said. “Unfortunately, and reality is, that it is a process that will provide the best education for our students whom we all love.”
In addition, a large group of parents, students and community members gathered outside the district office ahead of Thursday’s meeting, a common sight throughout the school merger consideration process.
Protester chants and honks from passing vehicles could be heard inside the meeting room. They chanted “Save our schools!” and “School board broke our trust!”
Several students like Marshall high schooler Elsa Peltzer spoke in defense of their schools and against closures. Peltzer’s family lost their home in the Eaton fire.
“I have already gone through enough, why do you have to take away the one thing I have left? There is only so much a teenage girl can go through before she gives up,” Peltzer said. “Marshall’s system works, why should we change that because you made a mistake?”
Published reports revealed apparent coordination and consolidation plans that included Fredericks, Harden, and fellow Trustees Kim Kenne and Yarma Velázquez before the process formally began early this year — only fueling the anger of those who have been against school mergers from the beginning.
Inside the meeting room, some had signs at the ready with one referring to the “shady 4.”
The trustees called out for alleged Brown Act violations on Thursday denied collusion with a district consultant hired to explore options for merging schools in the district.
Fredericks said a personal consolidation plan she created for her personal notes was independent of the consultant, as in 2025 she saw consolidation as a way to deal with the district’s massive structural deficit.
She said the board had no hand in the selection of the consultant.
“Any assertions or accusations that the creation and existence of the slides in any way tainted or influences this process is patently false,” she said.
Harden echoed Fredericks, saying there was no effort behind the scenes to hire a consultant, a role he said was at the superintendent’s discretion.
“On this I want to be clear. At no point was there any intention or attempt on my part to facilitate majority discussion of any topics,” Harden said.
He added that his work behind the scenes was about “effective governance” demands that trustees engage in rigorous research and fact finding.
Kenne and Harden said they regretted sarcastic and cynical text messages sent to board members and members of the public. They also said some of the published messages were taken out of context.
Faced with declining enrollment, the chief contributor to a financial crisis, PUSD’s trustees voted to explore consolidation as a way to right-size the district given current and future projected enrollment while also using the process as a way to save money.
Part one of that process concluded earlier this month when the Superintendent’s School Consolidation Advisory Committee voted against all merger scenarios proposed by PUSD’s third-party consultant Total School Solutions. The scenarios:
- Merge Don Benito Elementary School to Willard Elementary School
- Merge Norma Coombs Elementary School to Webster Elementary School
- Merge Eliot Arts Magnet and McKinley School and close McKinley (TK-5). McKinley elementary grade students would go to Hamilton, Madison or Washington
- Merge Thurgood Marshall ninth-12th grade with Pasadena High School and Marshall sixth-eighth grade stays at Marshall
- Merge Blair ninth-12th with Muir High School and Blair sixth-eighth with Octavia E. Butler Middle School
Part two began Thursday with the Board of Education being presented with the committee’s votes as well as an equity impact analysis prepared by Total School Solutions. The latter document found that no student groups would be disproportionately impacted by any merger scenarios.
The analysis, commissioned by the Board of Education to keep in line with state guidance around school closures, did not recommend any of the scenarios, but did posit that mergers, “show the potential to expand academic programming, strengthen athletic offerings, improve instructional resources, and create more equitable access to enrichment opportunities than smaller, under-enrolled schools can sustain independently.”
Opponents of school consolidation have consistently pushed back against this argument from the consultant saying it is antithetical to what makes PUSD special — a diverse array of schools that offer programs and learning environments that work for some student and not for others.
At two special closed meetings held the previous two Thursdays, the Board of Education discussed potential litigation over alleged Brown Act violations connected to the released records. At those meetings, a handful of public speakers called for the resignations of Fredericks, Kenne, Harden and Velázquez and threatened recalls.
Before Thursday’s vote, a second public hearing had been scheduled for Thursday, June 11. The Board of Education had been expected to make its final decision on school mergers at the Thursday, June 25 meeting.
Trustees discussed returning in June to come up with a plan of how to move forward.
“I support a course correct to this process,” Harden said. “I’m less concerned about hitting an open enrollment target date than I am about making decisions and getting this right and we haven’t gotten this right.”
Thursday’s meeting was streamed live on the KLRN Pasadena YouTube channel.
