TWENTYNINE PALMS—Morongo Unified School District will close Monument High School, the district’s alternative/continuation campus, with the onset of the 2012-13 school year. That closure will entail eliminating 18 teaching positions.
The students at Monument High, located in Twentynine Palms, and a portion of the faculty, will be relocated to Sky High in Yucca Valley.
District administrators will send out layoff notices to the 18 teachers to be eliminated in the Monument High closure, and layoff notices to two other high school teachers, 11 elementary teachers, and five special education teachers.
The cuts are part of the district’s efforts to deal with dwindling revenues passed through to it by the state.
In addition to the axing of instructors, the district is eliminating management and classified positions at the district office and at school campuses.
Superintendent Jim Majchrzak said the district is laboring under the state-imposed cuts but is also being forced to make economies because of declining enrollment.  Majchrzak said he hopes the closure of Monument High will prove to be a temporary fix that will be undone when revenues return to the district.
Sky High School Principal Ron Cox indicated students from Twentynine Palms who were attending Monument High will be able to obtain bus transportation to the Sky High Campus once the change goes into effect.
State law requires that teachers to be laid off in an upcoming school year receive tentative notice of the layoffs by March 15 and confirmation of the layoff in May.