Carpinteria Family School’s Fate Is Sealed

Carpinteria Family School will permanently close in June, the Carpinteria Unified School Board confirmed last week.

It’s a fate that families saw coming, but it was frowned upon nevertheless. 

“Overall, I think parents are disappointed but were resigned to this outcome after the vote last June,” said Jack Mohr, a Family School parent. He was referencing the board’s June 2025 vote to prune classes and staff in preparation for a permanent closure. 

“The remaining teacher at the school, Lorilee Collins, has been with the school since it began and is likely only teaching a few more years,” he said. 

Collins was the school’s only remaining teacher for the 20 students in her 4th and 5th grade combination class. She will be moved to Canalino Elementary School for the next school year to continue teaching her 4th-grade students. It will allow those students “a bit of closure on that chapter,” said school boardmember Jaime Diamond at last Tuesday’s meeting. “This has been a long road — painful and drawn out,” she said.

The school board cited the mounting pressures of declining enrollment districtwide and increasing budget challenges. 

Closing the elementary school — one of four in the district — will shave $120,000 from the district’s 2026-27 school year budget. It will officially close on June 30.

Once upon a time, the small, family-focused school had a budget of $540,000, with three teachers and three instructional assistants. It opened in 2002. Many families spoke up to try to save the school during past board meetings, noting its close-knit community, fun family days, and alternative approach to education.

“I’m not here to try to change your mind,” said Jessica Petrillo — who has two children in the district — at last week’s meeting. But many families had fond memories of the school, she added. “Family School is a really special place, and I’m deeply grateful one of my kids was able to be a part of it.” 

School boardmembers reflected sadly on the school’s closure, saying it was a difficult decision. 

“I hope that the families and students of Family School find their sense of community and safety and love and support at one of our other schools, and I believe that is possible,” said new boardmember Genette Alcaraz, who was sworn in in October. “I wish you guys luck.”

Despite these sentiments, Mohr charged that throughout the process, parents’ suggestions for maintaining the school amid the district’s financial challenges were not met with “any serious conversation from the board.” 

The district is in a delicate financial position. Its budget reserves dipped below 3 percent last year, according to Superintendent Diana Rigby.

Mohr framed the district’s recent legal battles as a money-sink. 

That includes settling four lawsuits tied to sexual abuse at the former Main Elementary School in the 1970s. The lawsuits, brought on by the state’s decision to temporarily drop the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual abuse, threatened to bankrupt the school district. Because the insurance the district had in the ’70s, Union Pacific, went out of business, the district was on the hook to pay out of pocket. 

In November 2025, the district paid out the fourth settlement after settling the other three earlier that year. In total, it has cost the district  $5.75 million, according to Coastal View News. The settlements allowed the district to avoid going to court, preventing much pricier verdicts, said the district’s legal counsel Craig Price at an October school board meeting.

The first three settlements totaled $4 million. They were paid using funds from selling school property — including the Bailard properties at 1101 and 1103 Bailard Avenue — to the Santa Barbara County Housing Authority. The district finalized the sale of the properties in January 2025 for $4.2 million. The fourth settlement was paid by borrowing a judgment obligation bond not to exceed $2.5 million, which the district can pay back over time, in no more than 20 years. 

Mohr also accused the district of “squandering substantial amounts of money on … their prolonged fight with union president Jay Hotchner.” Hotchner, the president of the Carpinteria Association of United School Employees, was dismissed from his position as a teacher at Carpinteria Middle School in 2022 for alleged “unprofessional” and inappropriate conduct toward students. However, Hotchner challenged the decision, and a state commission found that he was not unfit to teach and his dismissal was unwarranted. 

The district spent more than $3 million on legal fees to keep Hotchner out of the classroom, including an unsuccessful appeal of the state commission’s decision. According to Coastal View News, Hotchner returned to the classroom in August. 

Hotchner spoke at Tuesday’s meeting to criticize the district’s “unlawful” decision to dismiss him. Rogelio Delgado, a former school boardmember, charged that the money used to fight Hotchner’s reinstatement “could have saved the Family School.” 

However, the board stood by the district’s previous statements that the expenses were worth it to protect students from potentially inappropriate conduct.

“It was not unlawful. It was the district’s legal right and an obligation to go forward with this to protect the 40 kids over two years who lodged complaints,” Diamond said. “I just need this to be very clear: When we have students come to us … and say that an adult, a person who is in a position of power at a school site, is making them feel a certain way or doing something that is inappropriate, I will believe them, and I will stand up for them, and I will make the same choice again.

“It was not unlawful or illegal to do what we did,” she said. “And just because we didn’t prevail does not make it so.”