A newly combined program for grades seven through 12 will launch with the new school at Western High School, as the Anaheim Union High School District shuts down the Orangeview Junior High campus.
The Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees approved the consolidation plan in 2023, citing declining enrollment and long-term financial challenges. The district has lost about 5,500 students since the 2014-15 school year and, according to district staff, expects to lose another 3,900 by 2026-27. District officials have also said average daily attendance — which determines how much funding schools receive — has dropped, while costs tied to pensions, special education and other staffing issues continue to grow.
Orangeview most recently enrolled about 650 students, while Western High had 1,660, according to the latest figures from the California Department of Education.
Anaheim Union isn’t the only district making changes. As enrollment continues to drop across Orange County, other districts are also closing or considering the consolidation of schools. Last year, the Ocean View School District shut down Spring View Middle School and move its students to other campuses, and Orange Unified has also started exploring possible consolidations in response to declining enrollment.
“K-12 enrollment in Orange County has declined steadily over the past decade, with the most recent three-year drop totaling more than 22,000 students in traditional public schools — a trend largely driven by the high cost of living and declining birth rates,” Orange County Department of Education spokesman Ian Hanigan said in a statement.
District staff and educators in Anaheim Union said the school will adopt a more personalized, community-centered education model.
“We are at the forefront of rethinking what schools should be, and can be,” Bindi Crawford, co-principal of the new Orangeview-Western school, said during an update to the Board of Trustees meeting this week ahead of the start of school on Aug. 6.
District staff said the redesign introduces new academic structures aimed at boosting both learning outcomes and student well-being. That includes an eight-period block schedule on Mondays, three days of an advisory period each week, and twice-weekly late starts on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“On Mondays there will be a single block anchor day in which students will be able to go to all of their eight classes and check in with their teachers. On the other days, they will have a four-block period,” said Sean Fleshman, a longtime history teacher at Orangeview.
“The team felt very strong that it would be important to start off the week where each teacher saw each of their students at least once,” Crawford added. “These are shorter periods, but each student will go through every single one of their periods, including advisory, to kick off the week. Each period will be approximately 35 to 40 minutes.”
The idea behind advisory, according to Yamila Castro, a Spanish teacher at Western, is to build smaller learning communities and ensure each student has consistent contact with a trusted group of teachers. At the new school, students will meet in small, consistent advisory groups multiple times a week to build relationships and receive academic and emotional support.
“It ensures every student is known by name, assets and needs,” Castro said.
Another key component of the new school program, modeled after Hillsdale High in San Mateo, is what teachers call “Kid Talk.”
“When we visited Hillsdale, one of the practices that we learned at Hillsdale is this opportunity for students, support staff, administrators, counselors to do a preliminary intervention discussion about student needs and strengths,” Castro said. “So teachers come together twice a month and discuss students that they have questions about, that they would like to learn more about, maybe they’re having an attendance issue.”
“So this is a discussion with all of the teachers and support staff before it gets to the next level of intervention,” she said. “This way, every teacher has the opportunity to discuss students in a structured way.”
On Tuesdays, staff will use the late start time for Kid Talk and advisory planning, Castro said. Thursdays will be used for staff meetings, department check-ins or committee work.
Students will also be able to start career technical education (CTE) classes as early as eighth grade.
District officials said they expect the new model to yield stronger academic, behavioral and emotional outcomes.
“We’re going to likely be doing this with other schools as we move forward,” Superintendent Michael Matsuda said. “We learn together.”
Crawford said the team is focused now on getting to opening day, but also the work won’t stop there.
“This is just Year 1. And what we told our community is that Year 1 should not look like Year 2. This is a cycle of continuous progress and improvement,” she said.
Board President Brian O’Neal agreed.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens when the school opens and then how it is at the end of this first year,” he said.
The district is also planning another major campus move. Hope School is expected to close later this year and reopen on the former Orangeview campus in the 2026-27 school year, once that site is vacated.
“We have a committee working on thinking through the process of what will happen to that property,” Trustee Katherine Smith said.