School Districts to Redraw Boundaries for French Valley Students

Some students living in French Valley don't attend school in Murrieta or Temecula--they go to Hemet.

Students living in the area of Pourroy and Winchester roads take buses to Hemet for high school, said Lori Ordway-Peck, Temecula Valley Unified School District’s assistant superintendent of business services.

But school district officials are working on redrawing those school boundaries.

The closest high school in Hemet is much farther than the ones in Temecula, and getting some students there takes an hour and a half, Ordway-Peck said. “Let’s get these kids off their 90-minute bus rides and into their neighborhood school district,” she said at a meeting last week.

The solution to the problem is more complicated than it sounds. Hemet formed a “Community Facilities District,” which is an area that votes to charge itself a tax to pay for local infrastructure, including school services. The Hemet school district already budgeted the money the community facilities district would generate, Ordway-Peck said.

Since residents in the district overwhelmingly support sending their students to Temecula, officials are exploring ways to make it possible.

Their plan is to create a new community facilities district encompassing the old one. It will have supervision of both school boards, and officials hope to form it within the next six months, Ordway-Peck said.

In the joint district, the residents already paying for the Hemet debt will continue to do so, while homeowners outside the original district will pay Temecula for the cost of taking on the new students.

Anthony and Linda St. Martin, French Valley residents, kicked of the boundary redrawing process.

Though their children are grown, they saw local students getting off the buses late – sometimes after dark – and thought it had to stop, Linda St. Martin said.

“We knew there were schools pretty nearby, so why couldn’t we go to them?” she said.

Students will still be unable to attend Chaparral High, the closest school, because it’s full. The new students will get bused to Temecula Valley High School, Ordway-Peck said.

Until the boundaries are redrawn, the Temecula district asked Hemet to give the green light to all transfer requests.