PORT ANGELES — Choice High School students and staff say they are shocked by a recommendation to close their alternative school.
Closing the B Street school was the No. 1 recommendation included in the Budget Review Committee’s 37 budget-balancing proposals presented Monday to the Port Angeles School District Board.
The school district must trim its $34.4 million budget by $1 million to balance the fiscal 2002-2003 budget.
Closing Choice — the district’s only alternative education high school — would save $448,881, the recommendation said.
“I was aware that we were on the list, but had no idea we’d be the top recommendation,” Principal Cookie Kalfur said.
“What was recommended by the committee was not what was recommended by the district’s principals when we met.”
Choice’s 160 students — who would be moved to the Port Angeles High School campus on Park Avenue — were informed of the closure recommendation during an all-school meeting Tuesday.
“We were shocked,” Choice senior Violet Ashley said Thursday. “It was like a nightmare.”
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