Citrus College will always be the most unique school in its district; after all, it is the only school in that district.
Citrus College is a part of the Citrus Community College District, a district featuring Citrus College alone. While in most districts, the decisions are made with several schools in mind, Citrus is unique as decisions focus only on itself.
The district takes care of issues in-house without having to look outside its own windows to see what everyone else in the neighborhood is doing.
This is not without its advantages. Being the only school in the district allows potential problems on campus to be immediately and directly addressed.
However, the exclusivity of Citrus College can also insulate and isolate the campus. Other colleges can be operating in one way, while Citrus will act in its own.
Citrus College sets its own precedent, a fact that is both freeing and dangerous.
An example of this is the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, or in Citrus’ case, the lack thereof. Other schools, such as Mt. San Antonio College, have required students and faculty to show proof of vaccination to return to campus.
Citrus College is not obligated to follow this lead and has chosen not to. Citrus continues to require masking indoors, daily pre-screening and scanning QR codes around campus to track the disease. Yet, documentation of vaccination status remains a step the district of one will not take.
Another example of Citrus having the ability to act unilaterally is how they have handled fake students attempting to manipulate the financial aid system for profit.
Citrus and every other community college were hit hard by enrollment fraud in 2021.
The California Community College chancellor’s office reports that 40% of the 116 community colleges failed to report any information regarding the fraud, the L.A. Times said in a story on March 22.
The chancellor’s office plans to create a new state regulation that requires these colleges to submit information upon request within 10 days, reporter Michael Burke said in an article posted on edsource.org.
Currently, Citrus does not need to report any information regarding fraud to any state authority. It may have to if new regulation is passed, but that does not mean Citrus will fall into the same guidelines as L.A. County.
Citrus will have its own guidelines for dealing with fraud, or any other issue. This is the privilege of being a one-district school, for better or for worse.
This decision is made possible by the freedom to make it without any school to consider except Citrus College.
The prototypical school district is held accountable by various different colleges, just as the colleges hold the district accountable.
This is not a call for a vaccine mandate at Citrus, a repealing of COVID policies, or an upheaval of the Citrus College Community School District.
Rather, this is a message for Citrus to look outside of its own scope. A district of one is advantageous as long as it looks out the window.
Editorials are the opinion of at least 75% of the Editorial Board. Views expressed do not represent those of the adviser, faculty, administration, Associated Students of Citrus College and/or CCCBOT
