Year-Round Schooling in Vista to Begin in ‘90; 2nd Bond Vote Planned

Students in the Vista Unified School District will begin year-round schooling in the fall of 1990, and district residents in November will be asked again to approve a bond issue to help the district cope with crowding, the school board has decided.

District voters last November rejected a $63-million bond issue, but school board members decided unanimously Wednesday night to go back to the voters a second time, this time for permission to issue $38.8 million in bonds to renovate aging schools and build new ones.

The bond election last November received the blessing of 59.9% of the voters, but a two-thirds’ majority is necessary for bond authorization.

“Things are extremely desperate,” Trustee Lance Vollmer said. “If the bond issue fails this time, the next thing we might be looking at is double sessions and year-round schools.”

Year-Round Plan ‘A Given’

Officials say the plan for year-round schools, which has been discussed for more than eight months, will be implemented even if the bond issue next November is approved.

“Year-round schools are a given. There’s no question. Our goal now is that it hamper as few people as possible. We want it to work as smoothly as possible,” Vollmer said.

Existing facilities in the Vista school district were designed to handle about 10,000 students, but the district’s enrollment is about 16,000 and growing. The overflow students are now accommodated in portable classrooms, but some schools can’t even add temporary classrooms because other facilities--including libraries, playgrounds, restrooms and cafeterias--are stretched to the limit.

District controller Richard Vought said a specific spending plan for the $38.8 million in bond revenue, should it materialize, has not yet been outlined.

Some Money for New Kitchen

But, when they campaigned for last November’s $63-million bond issue, officials said $36.1 million was needed immediately for the renovation of some of the district’s oldest schools and to build three elementary schools and a middle school. Those four schools, officials said, are needed to relieve crowding, even if the district’s growth were to stop immediately. Some of the money would also be used for the construction of a central kitchen.

The remaining $26.9 million sought last year would have financed about half the cost of 10 more elementary schools, two middle schools and a high school that the district believes will be needed by the year 2000.

The year-round schooling will begin in phases. Starting in the fall of 1990, students in the district’s 10 elementary schools will begin attending school all year on a schedule marked by several short vacations versus the longer, traditional summer break.

Schedules to Begin in 1991, 1992

Students in the district’s three middle schools will begin their year-round schedule in the fall of 1991, and students in the three high schools will begin the schedule in the fall of 1992.

Critics of such plans say year-round schedules confound families trying to schedule vacations, especially if they have children in different grades in which the schedules do not coincide. Another concern is that year-round schools make it more difficult for children to participate in traditional summer enrichment programs and activities sponsored by community youth, art, athletic and other organizations.

Proponents note, however, that year-round schedules allow families to take vacations at times other than the traditional summer months, when most families travel, that the shorter breaks between sessions allow students to retain more and that less time is needed for refreshing.