Save Our Schools v. Barstow Unified School District Board of Education

I. INTRODUCTION

Defendant and respondent, Barstow Unified School District Board of Education (the District), approved closing two of its elementary, schools Thomson Elementary School (Thomson) and Hinkley Elementary School (Hinkley), and transferring their students to other District “receptor schools.” The District determined that the closures and transfers were exempt from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.), because they fell within the categorical exemption for “minor additions” to schools (see Pub. Resources Code, §21080.18; Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, §15314 (Guidelines) [school closures and student transfers resulting in “minor additions to existing schools” are categorically exempt from CEQA “where the addition does not increase original student capacity” of any receptor school “by more than 25% or ten classrooms, whichever is less.”]).

A citizens group, plaintiff and appellant Save Our Schools (SOS), petitioned the trial court for a peremptory writ setting aside the District’s resolutions approving the closures and transfers and finding them exempt from CEQA. The petition was denied and…