South Monterey County school districts reexplore consolidation effort that failed in 2018.

Since the opening of Greenfield High School in 1999, residents have expressed their desire for a unified school district. An effort to achieve this failed in 2018 after the Monterey County Committee on School District Organization rejected the idea, citing financial challenges.

Sandra Jo Galvan, superintendent of the Greenfield Union School District at the time (now at Salinas Unified), told Greenfield News that the district could revisit unification efforts as early as 2020. Now, a second effort toward unification is underway.

Greenfield has two school districts within its boundaries, GUSD and the South Monterey County Joint Union School District. Greenfield High is part of the latter, but the district’s offices are located in King City.

GUSD is spearheading the current unification drive. If the consolidation proceeds, it could leave SMCJUSD with a single school, King City High School. To address this, the current plan aims to merge three school districts into two, resulting in a K-12 district for both Greenfield and King City.

MCOE officials have approached the three school districts and presented the reunification proposal to the boards of GUSD and SMCJUSD, with a meeting scheduled with the King City Union Elementary School District on Sept. 15.

“Two unifications would save taxpayer dollars,” says Deneen Guss, superintendent of MCOE. “Parents in both communities would have a K-12 school system, and you’d not have three different boards and three different superintendents, you’d just have two.”

The State Board of Education was set to hear the proposal in November 2024. That meeting was moved to July of this year, only to be postponed once again. A new date has not been finalized.

If the plan moves forward, MCOE’s superintendent would call for a unification election 35 days after receiving the approval from the State Board of Education.