At Tuesday night’s Santa Barbara Unified School District board meeting, alumni of Lincoln Elementary School made an emotional and detailed appeal to reopen the long-shuttered downtown campus by fall 2026. Led by Marvin Gibson and Alberto Leon, with support from longtime Eastside advocate Alice Post, the presentation included a five-minute video montage and a formal request for the board to consider the school’s legacy, community impact, and potential future.
Centrally located at 710 Santa Barbara Street, adjacent to where the board meeting was held, Lincoln Elementary was closed in 1979 due to declining enrollment. But Gibson and Leon argued the closure created a “desert” of neighborhood schools in the downtown and lower Eastside areas, particularly affecting Latino and Black students. “It brought everyone from different walks all together in one place,” Leon told the board. “We were a community that was brought together by working-class families.”
Gibson recalled the school’s cultural diversity, strong academics, and life-shaping structure. “Mrs. Shirley Wright was very significant and played a very big role in my life. She was really strict. It really gave me a sense of studying and doing the best we could,” he said. “Why not preserve the legacy of a school like Lincoln?”…