SAN DIEGO –
After weeks of disagreement over what its massive fix-it list should include, the San Diego school board voted unanimously yesterday to put a $2.1 billion bond measure on the November ballot.
Without the fanfare that surrounded the vote to initiate Proposition MM a decade ago, trustees approved the sweeping ballot proposal that would repair and upgrade campuses throughout the San Diego Unified School District.
During the brief meeting, trustees and administrators expressed relief, not celebration, about the decision.
It was a far cry from the hype that swirled around the Proposition MM vote, a $1.51 billion measure cast in better economic times by trustees who assembled at an aging school in the company of supporters and dignitaries ready to tout the initiative.
The contrast underscores how times have changed.
“We are facing a $53 million budget deficit, and I am still very concerned that we laid off 200 probationary teachers,” Superintendent Terry Grier said. “We wanted to be respectful and businesslike about this. Anything else wouldn't be appropriate.”
With the economy in decline and the housing market in free fall, the bond could be a tough sell in a city where 80 percent of voters do not have children in public schools.
However, state law has changed in the past 10 years making it easier to pass a bond measure easier. The bond would succeed with 55 percent of votes, while Proposition MM needed two-thirds of votes to pass.
Bond measures this year in the Oceanside ($195 million), Poway ($79 million), Rancho Santa Fe ($34 million) and Cajon Valley ($156 million) school districts have passed.
The bond would continue the property tax established with Proposition MM – about $67 per $100,000 of the assesed value of a home – through 2044.
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Overview
Background: Voters in the San Diego Unified School District, the state's second largest, approved Proposition MM, a $1.51 billion bond measure to build and repair schools in 1998.
What's changing: The school board voted yesterday to place a $2.1 billion bond measure to upgrade existing schools on the November ballot.
The future: If the measure passes, property owners would continue paying a levy set by Proposition MM until 2044.
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The upgrades to schools the bond outlines include wireless Internet and other technology advances, renovated bathrooms and kitchens, air conditioning and revamped and new auditoriums.
Each campus would also get a lump sum of $150 per student for discretionary spending.
The bond also proposes some drastic changes. For example, Central Elementary School in City Heights could be shut down and merged with Wilson Middle School, which would reopen as a new kindergarten-through-eighth-grade program. Schools with low enrollment could be reborn as virtual schools or career-themed high schools. High schools carved into several small academies could be reconstituted altogether.
Each project would require approval from the school board. The district has posted a school-by-school list of bond projects on its Web site, sandi.net.
Although no organization has endorsed the bond, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce education committee gave it a stamp of approval. Later this summer, the board of directors will consider an endorsement, said Carmen Sandoval, the chamber's director of public policy.
But independent charter school representatives say the district has overlooked them and the roughly 13,000 students who attend their campuses – and their voting parents.
The bond includes about $100 million in renovations to charter schools housed on district campuses. Charters would also receive $150 per student. But no money has been earmarked for charters on non-district properties.
Greg Moser, an attorney representing the California Charter School Association, said the district should set aside 10 percent of bond proceeds for charter schools.
Maureen Magee: (619) 293-1369; maureen.magee@uniontrib.com
