State board tosses petition for Cayucos students to attend Morro Bay High

October 3, 2013

A petition to transfer Cayucos High School students from the Coast Unified School District to the San Luis Coastal Unified School District has stalled on a technicality. [Tribune]

Numerous Cayucos parents have petitioned the California State Board of Education to approve the transfer, which would allow their children to attend high school in Morro Bay, rather than in Cambria. Morro Bay is approximately 10 miles closer to Cayucos than Cambria and takes about one third of the time to drive.

Cayucos has its own K-8 elementary school district, but the area has been part of the Coast Unified since 1972, when it merged with Cambria and two smaller districts.

A year ago, the San Luis Obispo County Committee on School District Organization denied the parents’ request to transfer their high school students from Coast Unified to San Luis Coastal, to which Morro Bay High School belongs. The parents then appealed to the state board.

But, the Board of Education said it would not hear the appeal because the transfer request did not meet Education Code guidelines. In order for a transfer to occur, the area of Cayucos must either merge entirely with San Luis Coastal or create its own K-12 district.

Cayucos parent and lead petition Gretchen Ross told the Tribune that the petition is dead, but the group is consulting attorneys.

“It never should have gone forward in the first place,” Ross told the Tribune. “I was advised to do the wrong thing by the County Office of Education.”

County Superintendent Julian Crocker said the state board ruling was “a bit complicated” and “a very interesting turn of events, to say the least.”