LYNWOOD — After hours of discussion between parents, students and school district officials since November, the Board of Education Tuesday night approved a new boundary reconfiguration plan for the entire district that one board member says will put the district in a “horrible” state.

Rachel Chavez, who cast the lone vote against the plan, said “the majority rules, so this is how it has to be.”

Tuesday night’s meeting was the final step in the process of redrawing school enrollment boundaries.

The board approved a plan that will send sixth graders back to some elementary schools and probably keep all graduating eighth graders in their respective middle schools, since both of the district’s high schools will eventually only be serving 10th through 12th grades.

If there was some consistency throughout the entire district, things would be easier for the students, but because they’re not, the future is still unclear, Chavez said.

“Not all elementary schools will be [kindergarten through sixth grade], some will stay K-5,” Chavez said. “One middle school will also be keeping some sixth graders because there is no room at its feeding elementary schools. Some of the middle schools will stay [sixth through eighth grade], while others will be 7-9. And who knows, I’ve heard that Lynwood High School will be keeping its ninth graders. These are horrible configurations, but unfortunately, as usual, it seems I lose every battle I believe in.”

Despite voting against the plan, Chavez said she is the first to recognize that the status quo could not remain.

“This is why, even though people were against it, we had to bring in a demographer, so that he could figure out the numbers,” Chavez said. “I really hope that all this inconsistency doesn’t affect our students.”

The only good that came out of the meetings, was that some of the plan is what parents wanted, she said.

“I know a lot of parents don’t want their sixth graders at the middle schools, but I’m sad, because I personally don’t want to lose the advantage our elementary schools have as K-5s. Our elementary schools have garnered the greatest success, at least half of them reaching state standards, and now we’re going to put 120 more students in each school.”

The plan will eliminate the smaller classroom size.

The demographic consultant, Dean Waldfogel, of DecisionInsite Inc., who was hired last summer, told the school board that in his research over the years, success differences between kindergarten through fifth grade schools and kindergarten through sixth grade schools was nearly impossible to pinpoint.

“The preference among parents is to keep their children in the elementary school level as long as possible. They prefer K-6,” Waldfogel told the board. “I believe with all of the changes in our society, the pressures on our children, where kids are much more aware of things than in my generation … that’s what parents are concerned with. The concern is the same in K-8. It’s more of a social concern, rather than an academic concern. That’s what drives the K-6 preference.”

Approving the new plan were school board President Jose Luis Solache, Vice President Alfonso Morales and Oscar Espinoza. School board member Maria Lopez abstained from the vote. She said she respects what the community wants, but as a board member, she said she never saw any of the surveys.

The school district’s demographic problems stem from overcrowding at all of the schools. Former school board members several years ago approved a master plan that included four new schools, including a ninth grade academy that would accept all of the district’s ninth graders. That was to alleviate overcrowding at Lynwood High School, which had nearly 5,000 students at the time.

But as Chavez said Tuesday night, the master Plan was abruptly changed without community input and the idea for the ninth grade academy was tossed out the window along with everything else.

No one wants to admit it, Chavez said, but the problems the school district now has come from turning the Ninth Grade Academy into another high school campus — “one that for the last three years has hand-picked its students.”

At first Firebaugh High School accepted only ninth graders, but then its ninth graders didn’t want to go to Lynwood High School, so the following year, it was changed to accept ninth and 10th graders. Now the school serves students from the ninth through 12th grades.

There have been stories that some Firebaugh administrators have allegedly padded the school’s numbers with phony names and with more than 25 students who do not live in the district. In the fall, Firebaugh administrators were allegedly asking students to fill out applications if they wanted to attend the school.

In fact, Chavez said most ninth graders at Firebaugh live in the Lynwood High School boundary area.

With the new configuration plans, in the fall Firebaugh will only serve 10th through 12th grades. There will be no hand-picking students and absolutely no applications, Morales said Tuesday night.

The new configuration plans take effect in the fall. At that point eighth graders at Lynwood Middle School will stay for their ninth grade year, and in the fall of 2010 will go to Firebaugh High School.

Students from Hosler and Cesar Chavez middle schools in 2010 will be going to Lynwood High School, with no exceptions.

The bottom line here, Solache said, is “after we cut the pie, what do we want to accomplish.”

Not only will parents have to respect the boundaries he said, but so will administrators and school district officials.

Lourdes Castro-Ramirez, a parent and member of the Lynwood Save Our Students, reminded the board members that their ultimate vote would mean nothing unless they followed through on it.

“The leadership here has made mistakes in the past, but tonight you have the opportunity to make things right,” Castro-Ramirez said. “Not only should you make this decision, but you need to ensure your administration follows up, and is accountable. This decision you are making tonight isn’t just about Firebaugh, it’s not about Lynwood High School. It’s about all of our schools.”

Morales recommended that staff should present board members with phase-in plans and dates by the next school board meeting.

“Don’t give me no ghost committees,” he said. “I don’t care who does it, but someone needs to do it … to meet these deadlines.”

There is such a level of distrust in the district right now, Morales said, that if he sees “anyone mess[ing] with the rules established by this board tonight, there will be trouble.”

Espinoza seconded Morales comment.

“If we could turn back the clock and have two equal and comparable high schools, that would be ideal, but it wasn’t done like that,” Espinoza said. “Instead [the board] allowed a culture — a good culture — to grow there, but let’s be honest, it hasn’t been working for Lynwood.”

Bringing stability to the school district is one of the reasons why Espinoza ran for school board, he said. Every year, Firebaugh has been something different and the division and unhealthy competition between Firebaugh and Lynwood high schools is not something he wants to see continue in the school district that sent him to Cornell University.

“It’s come down to our students hating each other,” Espinoza said, adding that that kind of thing starts with adults. “There is no healthy competition there. … If more money has been going to one school, that needs to stop. Both schools are equal. … Students at both schools should be doing things together, playing sports together, then shaking hands and then going to Chico’s Pizza afterwards.”

The division between the two high school campuses is very apparent, said one Firebaugh student.

“There is a rivalry there,” he said. “But it would be great if we could get together and do more things together. If someone doesn’t do something to stop it, then it will get worst. Hate is never a good thing, especially when you live right next to each other. I’m glad that someone is trying to fix it, because if they wait any longer, it will be too late.”

In the end, Espinoza said he hopes the new plan works, not only because he voted in favor of it, but because it would be detrimental to the district and to the students if in three years from now reconfiguration is needed again.

If the boundary reconfigurations are respected by all parties, said Waldfogel, the plan will work for the district for the next 10 years.