Southeast Academy students advocate for move to Excelsior High School

Southeast Academy students spoke in favor of relocating the school to the Excelsior High School campus at Monday’s Norwalk-La Mirada school board meeting. Photo by Vincent Medina

NORWALK – Southeast Academy students advocated for moving school operations to Excelsior High School during the Norwalk La Mirada Unified School District school board meeting on Monday.

Faculty and students say that the academy is in poor condition and moving the school to Excelsior would benefit students.

Michael Shapiro, a U.S. Navy veteran and former law enforcement officer, advocated for the move after his son graduated from the academy.

“You have an option to fund the existing location at a run-down middle school, or you can move it to a larger campus and potentially grow,” said Shapiro. “The parents are only going to deal with this for so long. It’s only a matter of time before someone says ‘We don’t need this district, let’s start a charter school,’ and then where you at?”

Shapiro said there has been a notion to move the school before, but the school board could never agree on a decision.

Graduates from Southeast Academy also supported the move to a larger campus, claiming the campus is outdated.

Monica Del Rae graduated from the academy and now has a son attending school at the academy as well.

“The fact that [the NLMUSD school board] would either merge them with John Glenn but won’t spend money on them is pretty upsetting,” said Del Rae. “I have co-workers interested in Southeast Academy but I will not encourage them to the academy if you cannot father to move them to a bigger high school.”

Del Rae said she occasionally volunteers at the academy and sees that the school is underfunded and outdated.

The NLMUSD school board did not vote on the action during the meeting and did not indicate when they would address the issue in their next meeting on March 28.

School board member Dr. Robert Cancio also graduated from the academy, but disagrees with the action to merge the school.

“The Academy is not a JR ROTC program and cannot ‘just be merged,’ state law and the accreditation process forbid such a move,” said Dr. Cancio.

“We must fight for Southeast Academy, for the students it serves, for the community it raises up. And must do whatever it takes to save it, nothing should be off the table.”