Bonsall Sponsor Group defers Willow Tree enrichment center vote

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

The Bonsall Community Sponsor Group deferred a vote on a recommendation for or against a Major Use Permit for the proposed Willow Tree academic enrichment center.

Concerns about traffic impacts led to Friends of Willow Tree being asked to provide an operational plan. The next Bonsall Sponsor Group meeting is scheduled for Sept. 7.

"I'm happy to put that together," said Friends of Willow Tree Director Bethany Chaffin.

Friends of Willow Tree has submitted an application to the county for a Major Use Permit to build a school in the 6800 block of West Lilac Road. The school would encompass 6.41 acres of a 14-acre site just west of Sullivan Middle School.

"It is exactly what our families are looking for in terms of a rural and outdoor area," Chaffin said.

The site consists of two parcels. The Major Use Permit is only for the front parcel. "We're not going to be building on the back parcel at all," Chaffin said.

That may be revised, as some sponsor group members suggested that the back parcel rather than the front parcel be used for the school. The advantages of that include reducing visual impact from West Lilac Road and increased distance to prevent cars at the school from backing up to the public street.

"I don't know that I can support it in the way it's currently configured," said sponsor group chair Steve Norris.

The proximity to Rawhide Ranch made the West Lilac Road site ideal for Willow Tree. "Our classes incorporate nature into everything that we do. In order to do this we can't operate in a city," Chaffin said. "It's the perfect place for this natural experience to occur."

That would also place Willow Tree near Sullivan Middle School, which currently is also the site of Bonsall High School. "I don't see personally how we can approve this," said sponsor group member Larissa Anderson, who is also the president of the Bonsall Unified School District board. "Lilac Road is not meant to handle that type of traffic."

The campus would educate students from transitional kindergarten through eighth grade. The application specifies a maximum of 216 students. "All of these students are rarely on campus at the same time," Chaffin said.

"It's very different than a traditional school," Chaffin said. "We do not function like a traditional school. Our families do not all arrive at the same time or depart at the same time."

Willow Tree is neither a charter school nor a private school. Chaffin notes that Willow Tree is an enrichment center which works with eight different charter schools and with homeschooling parents. "We are not a charter school, but we do work with charter schools," Chaffin said.

"We work as a nonprofit. We work with charter schools as a vendor," Chaffin said. "We have other families who file their own private school affidavit."

A charter school requires the approval of the school district covering its geographic location (in the case of a non-unified school district either the elementary school district or the high school district can provide support to the charter school). "The nomenclature enrichment center is a way to circumvent the process," Anderson said.

A facility which aids but is not the primary instruction for students might not qualify as a school for zoning purposes. "That's like to me more of a commercial activity," Anderson said.

"A project of this size should be put in a commercial area," said Wrightwood Road resident Mike Hulsizer.

Hulsizer noted that the Bonsall Community Plan limits commercial activity to certain areas. "This project does not fit the plan," he said.

Sean Oberbauer, who is the project planning manager for the county's Department of Planning and Development Services, noted that exceptions can be made to a community plan. "The Bonsall Community Plan is more of a guiding factor," he said.

"The question of fit is multi-faceted," Norris said. "It is with the appropriate permit."

The enrichment center would have nine buildings totaling 41,000 square feet. The school grounds would also have 85 parking stalls. The class size would be approximately 14 students, although 24 students would be enrolled in each of the nine class grades. The approximate student to instructor ratio at Willow Tree is 2:1.

"We have large classrooms because we move a lot within our classrooms," Chaffin said.

Chaffin added that nationally the average classroom size is 122 square feet per student or 2,928 square feet per class. The average Willow Tree classroom is 1,600 square feet.

Most of the instruction involves the students being at remote locations rather than on the school site. Performing and vocational arts instruction and physical education would take place at the school. The Bonsall campus would include a two-story building 30 feet tall. Half of the space would be used for a theater encompassing both stories, one-quarter of the facility would be a library on the second story, and one-quarter of the building would have a kitchen area.

Willow Tree was initially Pathways Academy and was chartered by the Bonsall Unified School District. A change in state law required a charter school to be within the geographical area of the district which approved the charter, so Pathways Academy became the independent Willow Tree enrichment center. Initially Willow Tree was located at the former St. Stephen church on East Mission Road, but when the Fallbrook Regional Health District took over that facility, Willow Tree relocated and the school is currently using the Living Waters Church building. Willow Tree had 134 students during 2019-20.

Approximately 60% of the current Willow Tree enrollment is from students living within the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District or Bonsall Unified School District boundaries. Chaffin noted that many parents who send their children to Willow Tree have other children who attend a local public school. Most of the remaining 40% of students are from Vista, Oceanside, and Pauma Valley. The furthest student lives in Murrieta.

Currently 14% of the students are Bonsall residents. "It's not something that arises from need from within the area," said sponsor group member Richard Hatano. "It does not make sense for Bonsall."

(Chaffin noted that a Bonsall location might increase the number of Bonsall students at the school.)

In its current location, Willow Tree is near two schools. "We are not creating an impact from our traffic," Chaffin said. "We don't want to be a burden. We want to be an asset to the community."

Friends of Willow Tree would construct a left turn lane on West Lilac Road. "We wanted to keep cars off of Lilac," Chaffin said.

Chaffin was Bethany Pavel when she moved to Fallbrook from Alexandria, Virginia, in 1994. She was a Fallbrook High School student for her senior year. "We drive Lilac. We've known Lilac since 1994 when I moved here," she said.

The current planned length of the left turn lane is 200 feet, which could accommodate 12 to 13 cars. "It can even be extended further," said traffic planner Bill Darnell of Darnell and Associates.

"That is not the appropriate location," said Sullivan assistant principal Cindy Prestwood.

Chaffin noted that Willow Tree seeks to coordinate with the Bonsall district so that students would not arrive or leave at the same time as the Sullivan Middle School or Bonsall High School students. "We adjust the operations based on schools around us," she said.

A 10 foot wide trail would also be added along the project frontage.

"The applicant in my personal opinion has done a good job designing the facility from a look and layout perspective," Norris said.

Norris explained that the sponsor group will make its decision based on community character and impacts rather than on the benefits of the education. "As a sponsor group we're not here to look at how good the program is," he said.