BURNEY, Calif. — Rumors are circulating among concerned parents about the possibility of Burney High School merging with Fall River Mills High.

Parents talked about the increased travel this would cause for intermountain families, but Superintendent Morgan Nugent held a meeting Wednesday evening to address some concerns.

“There are just a lot of rumors. The school will not be closed. This is something that has been discussed over the last few decades,” Nugent said. “I wanted to get advice from the board on whether we still wanted to discuss it or not.”

According to Nugent, talk of merging schools had been in the air since before he took office a few months ago. He said this conversation will likely be brought up in years to come.

Nugent said it comes down to a few issues, the main one being understaffing. He said this is a nationwide problem and that while they try to encourage employment through programs such as “Troops to Schools,” where veterans with transferable skills work in schools, they still struggle to fill positions.

“We’re seeing shortages across the state, if not across the country. Currently we have a PE position that we can’t even fill. It’s an amazing situation, because when we started our career, there were more than a dozen physical education teachers,” Nugent said.

Staffing isn’t the only problem Nugent sees at the school. He said the infrastructure just isn’t what it used to be and that creates equity issues for students because they simply don’t have enough resources to improve or fix problems in schools. .

There will be a meeting in December to discuss the idea of ​​merging the school, but Nugent reminds the community to go directly to the source if they have any concerns.

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