Bond Measures to Fuel a School Building Boom

California’s schools and universities, long confined to aging and crowded campuses that became potent symbols of the decline of public education, are about to undergo a hard-hat invasion unmatched since the 1960s.

Not only did voters statewide approve a $9.2-billion bond measure--the largest in California history--on Nov. 3, but voters in local elections have also approved a slew of new spending. In all, roughly $18 billion worth of school construction bonds have won approval in California in less than two years.

Even in tax-averse Orange County, Buena Park voters agreed to borrow $13.8 million to upgrade their schools. And administrators in several other districts, including Laguna Beach Unified, Santa Ana Unified, Huntington Beach Union and Anaheim City School District, said they too may ask taxpayers next year to spend millions to renovate their aging campuses.

Voters in Los Angeles and San Diego also recently passed school bond measures.

The consensus behind the movement to rebuild the state’s education systems is striking. Each of the local measures required at least two-thirds voter approval. The statewide Proposition 1A, needing only a simple majority, won with a lopsided 63% of the vote. It passed in 42 out of 58 counties, sweeping the Bay Area and Southern California.

No doubt the trend owes much to the revived state economy. But educators say it also signals that voters understand public education requires public investment.

After years of school neglect, “citizens and parents and legislators understand that there is a need to make some improvements in what we attempt to provide children,” said Terry Bradley, who chairs a statewide group of educators and builders called the Coalition for Adequate School Housing. “And there’s a will to get that done.”

In Orange County’s largest school district, the 50,000-student Santa Ana Unified, 47 schools need a total of $115 million in upgrades, repairs and renovations. Annual enrollment increases have exceeded 2,000 students every year since 1979, forcing administrators to rely on an estimated 700 portable classrooms.

Because the district doesn’t have the money to expand schools or build new ones, it cannot fully implement the highly popular state program that limits 20 students to a classroom in the early grades.

“When the education program is driven by the facilities situation, that is bad,” said Mike Vail, an assistant superintendent. “We hope that some of the need will be met by Proposition 1A.”

The new state law will reimburse 50% to 80% of the cost of three projects: a $2-million modernization of Carr Intermediate School; construction of a $2.1-million “all-portable” school for grades 3 through 5; and an $800,000 expansion of Sierra Intermediate School.

“For so long we’ve been told we have to wait, we have to wait,” said Lucinda Clear, the principal of Carr Intermediate, which was built in 1955. “So suddenly we’re going ahead and we just can’t believe it.”

From universities to one-room schoolhouses, education officials throughout the state are angling for a piece of the construction bonanza. Speed pays: With so much money to be spent, a glut of projects could jack up construction prices.

The school board in Capistrano Unified--one of Orange County’s fastest-growing and most overcrowded districts--voted in late October to begin the construction bid process for three new elementary schools and one middle school, in anticipation of Proposition 1A’s victory at the polls.

“We were ready to advertise those bids on Nov. 4,’ said Jacqueline Price, the special assistant to Supt. James A. Fleming.

The University of California, due to receive about $840 million over four years from the state bond measure, plans to move forward with new health science facilities in Los Angeles and seismic upgrades in Berkeley, Irvine, Davis, Riverside and San Francisco. The measure will also help launch a long-awaited 10th UC campus at Merced in the San Joaquin Valley.

UC Irvine will use Proposition 1A funding to increase class offerings in science, one of its most popular academic areas. Construction begins in August 2000 on a $47-million Natural Sciences building for undergraduate students studying biology and chemistry.

Janet Mason, the director of capital planning at UCI, said the 124,000-square-foot building is “pivotal” to the future of the campus, where enrollment continues to climb. Biology is the second most popular major on campus and both science and engineering majors are required to take chemistry classes.

The California Community Colleges and California State University systems, each expecting a share about equal to UC’s, are planning make-overs for many campuses often neglected in the state budget.

Of the $17 million allocated to the Coast Community College District, the bulk of the state money, $14.4 million, will pay for a new fine arts building with classrooms and performance space at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. Construction is scheduled to begin in November 1999.

Cal State Fullerton will also build a $28.5-million complex for theater, dance and music students. Proposition 1A includes a total of $56 million for new construction projects for the university, including a $19.3-million expansion of the Physical Education Building and upgrades to make buildings earthquake safe.

With 5.7 million students, California’s K-12 system is the nation’s largest. Enrollment is likely to surpass 6 million in the next five years. Yet educators have complained repeatedly in recent years that construction and repairs have not kept pace. Stories abound at elementary and secondary schools of leaky roofs, rotting portable classrooms, overloaded utilities, clogged bathrooms and classrooms spilling into cafeterias and libraries.

Proposition 1A, three times larger than any bond measure in state history, earmarks $6.7 billion for public school repair and construction over four years. At least $2.9 billion will help districts buy land and put up new schools; at least $2.1 billion will help them repair or modernize existing schools. In addition, up to $700 million will be spent to help reduce elementary class size under a highly popular 2-year-old state program, and up to $1 billion will be set aside for schools with special financial hardships.

Because most of the state money will require matching funds, the best-positioned districts are those that have passed their own bond measures or, as in the case of Capistrano, collected substantial fees from housing developers.

In Buena Park, Supt. Carol Holmes Riley said the possibility of state matching funds made it even more worthwhile for taxpayers there to support the school referendum, known as Measure K. The 13.8 million will repair overflowing toilets, replace rusty pipes, upgrade electrical wiring to accommodate computers and update the heating-and-cooling systems in the district’s six elementary schools and one middle school.

The total cost of repairs to Buena Park schools is actually $42 million, but school officials correctly assumed that paring down the amount of borrowing would increase support for it. Now, with state dollars, the district can complete more construction projects than originally anticipated, Riley said.

One of the biggest windfalls may land in San Diego County. There, voters approved four local bond measures this month. The $1.5-billion measure for San Diego City Unified measure works out to nearly $11,000 for each of the district’s 136,000 students.

But for every Buena Park and San Diego, there is an Anaheim City School District, where campuses are so old and crowded that elementary-school students attend classes year-round and on staggered sessions. A $48-million bond issue was rejected by voters in April.

Supt. Roberta Thompson said the district will apply for Proposition 1A money under what’s known as the “hardship clause.” But she said politicians are wrangling in Sacramento over its interpretation and she doesn’t think the district is a shoo-in for money.

Either way, administrators expect to hold another bond referendum in 1999 and Thompson is predicting it will eventually pass.

“The quality of every community is going to be determined by the quality of education in the community,” she said.

State regulators this week expect to approve guidelines for Proposition 1A funding that reduce red tape in what had been a notoriously complex state building program.