Federal funding comprises just a fraction of the modest budget of the tiny Pacific Elementary School District. The Santa Cruz County district has one school. Its superintendent, Eric Gross, also serves as the school’s principal and its preschool director.
“That’s what happens in a small rural school,” Gross told me recently in a call from his office at Pacific Elementary, total enrollment 183. The school, tucked just east of Highway 1 on a plateau above the Pacific Ocean, is described on its website as a leader in “experiential learning,” and Gross said that many of its students are transfers from nearby districts.
