Salinas City Elementary clashes with County Board of Ed on school transfers.

There is something quaint about the idea of the neighborhood school, a place that kids can walk to, and that puts them in a classroom among their neighbors, with decisions about which school a child attends based on their address.

Such rules (and exceptions to those rules) evolve along with the politics, budgets and attitudes around public education. And they are being tested in a back-and-forth unfolding between Salinas City Elementary School District and the Monterey County Office of Education.

In the 2023-24 school year, 549 students who lived in SCESD boundaries transferred to other school districts, mostly to nearby Spreckels to the west, Santa Rita to the north, or Alisal to the east. That number represented 7 percent of average daily attendance. “That’s a significant number of students,” Superintendent Rebeca Andrade told the MCOE board on June 10.

SCESD’s board took a new direction, denying more student requests for interdistrict transfers. A spike in denials resulted in a spike in appeals starting last year and continuing this year, with multiple appeal hearings before the MCOE board.

As appeals have come up, with eight more scheduled for Wednesday, July 15, parents have gone to the microphone to plead their case, some more persuasively than others. There are child care needs (the babysitter who does school pickup and lives right near an out-of-district school), parents’ work schedules and impossible drop-off times, relationships with teachers and friendships. “We feel it’s in our children’s best interest to maintain structure and stability,” said one dad of two children who had transferred to Spreckels.

Again and again, the MCOE board has agreed with the appellants, whatever their reasons, overturning SCESD’s denials. That is despite Andrade’s plea that MCOE uphold the denials. “When we are overturning so many, it really does have a huge impact,” she said.

SCESD also has an influx of students who transfer in, many families drawn to a dual-language immersion program. The same year 549 students left the district, 524 students who lived outside the district enrolled in SCESD; in 2024-25, 629 students transferred in, more than the 468 who transferred out. That trend repeated in 2025-26.

These numbers matter because each student equals incoming revenue from the State of California to fund public education, and demographic projections show the number of school-age children continuing to decline. School administrators plan budgets and hire or lay off teachers well before the school year. Declining enrollment creates financial pressure, leading to a lower tolerance for transfers, MCOE Superintendent Deneen Guss said: “That’s why we’re seeing this now and we haven’t seen it through the years.”

MCOE attorney Thomas Manniello added some context. “I don’t want this to sound cynical, like a district’s just chasing money,” he said. Less revenue makes it harder to fund good programs: “The question is, are you looking at that district’s goal or this individual transfer student’s educational continuity? You have to balance that.”

For now, MCOE is balancing in favor of the individual students. That’s based on an analysis of state law by Manniello, that once a transfer is approved, it must be maintained until the student completes the highest grade level at that school. It’s an interpretation SCESD disputes.

“It’s alarming,” MCOE Board President Heather Owen says of SCESD’s denials. “It seems like they should be granting these.”

More broadly, Owen says, “There is some value also in allowing parents and families to choose what is right for them. It is a balance.”

While the two boards fight over how to read state law, the whole process seems to miss the bigger question: Who gets to decide where students attend school? Even Manniello noted that transfers can be driven not by genuine needs but by darker impulses: “In some cases, it’s driven by white flight.”

I think of one family that appealed for their daughter, getting ready to start second grade in Spreckels instead of at El Gabilan Elementary in Salinas. “The school they are recommending is primarily a Spanish-speaking school,” the mom said. “She doesn’t speak any Spanish.”

In fact, El Gabilan is one of SCESD’s schools that does not offer dual immersion; all classes are taught entirely in English.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.