Enrollment Levels, Pay at Issue in School Races

Overcrowding in Azusa and declining enrollment in neighboring Glendora present widely divergent problems for school districts as candidates face off for the Nov. 5 elections.

In the Bonita Unified School District, where teachers have threatened to strike if they do not receive pay raises, how to finance an increase has become a major issue.

Nine candidates, including three incumbents, are competing for three seats on the Azusa Unified School District board. In addition to overcrowding, candidates also cite the need to raise basic skills standards.

Enrollment in the Azusa district, 9,535 this year, is up 235 from last year, district officials said. To handle the unexpected overload, 55 students are being bused from schools near their homes to others that are less crowded.

In the Glendora Unified School District, five candidates, including three incumbents, are competing for three seats. While neighboring Azusa must grapple with overcrowding, the Glendora district is trying to cope with a continuing decline in enrollment, which has resulted in cuts in state funding.

In Bonita, where three candidates, including two incumbents, are vying for two seats, teachers have urged that the district, which encompasses San Dimas and La Verne, use a portion of any lottery funds the district receives to increase their pay.

Teachers also have suggested that the district use part of a $2.6-million surplus from last year to help finance a pay hike. The surplus is the result of a textbook purchase deferral and setting aside money for computer purchases.

Azusa

In Azusa, district officials attribute the rise in enrollment to new housing developments and school policies limiting the number of students who can transfer to other districts.

Candidates agree that the district will have to take action on the overcrowding problem within the next few years.

- William R. Cavanaugh, 26, a student at Cal Poly Pomona, said he is considering becoming a teacher and is a candidate because “education is the focus of the future.”

Cavanaugh is also concerned about the increasing number of students in the district. “The present school board is not planning for 5-10 years down the line,” he said. “The population is growing. We should not be selling school sites. We need more school sites.” (The district is trying to sell five acres of school property on which a school built of portable classrooms had been located. The classrooms have been moved to another location.)

- Incumbent Rosemary P. Garcia, 40, a consumer service representative for the city of Azusa, was appointed to the board in June to replace Dave Evans, who resigned. Garcia, who also expressed concern about overcrowding, said average class size should be reduced from 35 to 25 students. “This year every school was over our attendance expectations. At the moment the students are adjusting.”

She also thinks curriculum should be standardized.

“We need a program of standardized classes throughout the district that would make it easier for students to transfer within the district,” Garcia said. She also thinks the district should put more emphasis on college preparation. “It would have made it easier for my three kids, who are in college now,” she said.

- Incumbent Inez Z. Gutierrez, 50, a homemaker, has served on the board since 1971. She called the problems with overcrowding “a bit of an overflow,” and said that students had adjusted well to the busing program. “This is a temporary program for this year. We need to sit down and see what’s in the best interest of the kids,” she said.

Gutierrez said she believes that new spelling and math programs will improve scores on state tests.

- Incumbent Eunice P. Harrington, who declined to state her age, is a reading specialist who owns her own clinic. Harrington, who has served one term on the board, puts an emphasis on developing good basic skills in all students, including those who opt for an emphasis on vocational training.

She also is concerned that students attend class in crowded rooms that are not air-conditioned. “September is sometimes our hottest month, and if the room is facing west, temperatures are over 100,” she said.

“We may have to shift the moneys from someplace else and put a priority on air conditioning and smaller classes,” she said.

- Walter L. Harville Jr., 53, a warehouse expediter, said that he decided to enter the school board race “for the hell of it.”

“This is a testing thing,” said Harville, who ran unsuccessfully for the school board in 1983. “You have to start somewhere,” he added.

“Who pays for the schools? We pay for it, but we’re getting ripped off. We need to weed out the the people who are not doing their jobs and get down to teaching.”

- Judy A. Holthaus, 35, a contracts administrator, said she had been active in the PTA and decided to run because “if you don’t get involved as parents, you don’t know what’s going on. A lot of decisions are already made by the school board before the PTA hears about them.”

Holthaus said she was concerned about overcrowding, especially in schools at the north end of Azusa where new housing developments are being built. She said she thinks that county special education classes held on district campuses imposed an extra burden on the already crowded district. Holthaus also said schools should get more involved in disaster preparedness programs.

- La Vonne A. Muniz, 39, owner of a children’s used-clothing store and mother of two children in district schools, stressed the need for a more stable curriculum and a return to the three Rs.

“I would like to see an emphasis on basic education again, and they’ve got to stick to one type of curriculum. There was a period when they tried to introduce ‘new math’ and then they switched and now you have confused children. School districts have a tendency to use new ways to teach the kids, and then they say, ‘Gee, that doesn’t work,’ and they change it, but what about the kids who had it for one year?”

She said she thought there should be more training in art. “Art is very important and it is not stressed. You can use art to become an engineer or an architect.”

- Gladys E. Neustrom, 72, a retired clerk typist whose three grown children attended district schools, said she is concerned about what she perceives as a lack of moral training in schools. Campus drug use worries her, as does allowing children with AIDS to attend public schools.

“I’m terrified about AIDS. It is not a civil rights issue. It’s a health issue. They should take care of it like tuberculosis.”

Nuestrom also thinks that the state should contribute more to state-mandated special programs such as care for the handicapped.

- Caroline M. Snyder, 51, a Covina teacher, cited overcrowding as her main concern. She said she had been active in a fight to keep a condominium project from being built in northeast Azusa because it would have added a large number of students to the district, compounding the overcrowding problem.

“What are you going to do with 1,000 new kids? With 30 kids per classroom, that’s a lot of classrooms.”

Glendora

Candidates in the Glendora Unified School District are concerned with problems arising out of declining enrollment and the consequent drop in funding. District officials said the substantial drop in enrollment over the last 15 years results in large part from the number of “empty nest” households in the community.

Average daily attendance so far this year has been 5,554, compared to 5,785 last year. Enrollment has been falling steadily since 1970, when it was 9,363, said Tom Kidwell, assistant superintendent for business.

- Robert R. Bradley, 56, a marketing manager and father of five children, said he would like to see more emphasis on college preparatory courses. “We need more programs aimed at putting more kids into college and not just getting them there, but getting them to finish,” he said. Bradley said he also thought vocational education could be improved.

- Incumbent Douglas D. Graham, 44, an attorney and father of five children, said declining enrollment may mean fewer classes and less course variety for the smaller number of students remaining in the district.

“Our problem is to continue to provide a comprehensive education,” he said. Graham said that financing in the district has not been stable from year to year, and he would like the district to get a “firm and continuing financial commitment” from the state.

- Incumbent Everett W. Hughes, 49, a real estate developer who has served one term, said he is running for reelection to continue his work on basic skills programs, which he said have increased the test scores of Glendora students.

Hughes also is interested in expanding before- and after-school programs for students at five of the six Glendora elementary schools offering such programs for the children of working parents.

- Rebecca S. Jeffrey, 32, a medical office manager, said she is running because she does not think her four children are getting an adequate education.

“I’m for a more classical education, more geometry, physics, science, Latin Greek and Shakespeare,” she said. She does not think that vocational education should be stressed in the schools, adding, “We need factory workers as much as we need Presidents, but we need to develop them all the same way.”

- Incumbent Mary R. Lundstrom, 51, a comptroller who has served two terms, said she would like to see more continuity in education from kindergarten through the 12th grade.

“The district is enacting some new K-through-12 curriculums that better define what you expect to teach the children and what you expect the children to learn at each level,” she said. “There is a basic pattern to what is learned as the child progresses from skill level to skill level.”

Lundstrom said she thinks that students who are not college-bound should receive more academic training. “A man might not see a need for algebra, but to operate a machine anymore, it takes more and more,” she said.

Paul D. Harrington dropped from the race last week, saying he is moving from the district.

Bonita

In Bonita, where teachers have threatened to strike, administrators and teachers agree that a contract settlement is unlikely before the election. They have asked that a mediator be appointed to try to settle the dispute, which centers on salary, said Stan Whitley, president of the Bonita Unified Teachers Assn. The teachers are seeking an 8.5% raise, and the district has offered 5.5%. Both sides are hoping that a mediator can iron out the problems. The pay scale ranges from $19,084 to $33,191.

Although the candidates agree that teachers should be paid more, they do not believe that the district should rely on lottery revenue to finance education. And they believe that surplus funds should be used to finance building repairs and improvements rather than to increase teacher pay. Two of three candidates think the pay raises should come from state allocations; the third believes that the district must rely on more businesslike management techniques to produce the needed revenue.

- Incumbent Frank E. Bingham III, 44, vice president of a candy distributing firm who has served one term, said he thinks the teachers deserve a raise and that it should come directly from the state. “The teachers are terribly underpaid for their value,” he said.

But Bingham said that rather than using surplus funds for raises, the district should allot some of that money for building improvements and for keeping up with technical advances. “Science is changing so rapidly that it makes it hard to teach students. All the textbooks and things are not advancing at the same rate,” he said.

- Incumbent Robert E. Green, 47, a senior management consultant who has served two terms, said, “The district has made the best offer it can make,” and it would be “financial foolishness” to budget salary hikes using lottery funds that the district has not yet received. Green said he thinks surplus funds from last year’s budget should be used to make building repairs.

“The money (for raises) is not going to come to school districts like Bonita. If we’re going to do something, we’re going to do it ourselves.”

Green also would like the district to establish a program for students with alcohol and drug problems that “makes parents get involved and realize they have the problem as well as the kid.”

- Jeff Schenkel, 37, who owns a public relations firm and has two children, said that although he thinks Bonita teachers are underpaid, he does not think raises should come from surplus or lottery funds. “They (the state) need to get a more effective means of cutting the pie,” he said.

Schenkel said he became interested in running for the school board because of what he called the unresponsiveness of the board to problems at Shull Elementary School, which is located next to a soldering equipment manufacturing firm. Schenkel contends that the firm, Plato Products, produces toxic emissions that may be harmful to students. William Eldred, vice president of Plato, said emissions pose no risk to the students. The County Department of Health Services and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, both of which have conducted source and emission tests, concur that there is no hazard.

Schenkel said that although he is generally satisfied with the school board’s progress in such areas as improving students’ test scores, “there is a tendency of the board to be satisfied with the status quo.”