Props. L and M Would Provide Needed Carlsbad School Facilities

When it’s time for the entire student body at Carlsbad’s Valley Junior High School to assemble, a strange thing happens. Teachers and administrators herd the 950 students three blocks to Carlsbad High School, usually in two separate groups. That’s the nearest place with a room big enough to hold even half the school’s seventh- and eighth-graders.

Proposition M, on the local ballot June 5, would put an end to this unfortunate and potentially dangerous situation. The measure would allow the Carlsbad Unified School District to borrow $2.5 million to build at the junior high a multipurpose center and expand a library that school administrators say is small and inadequate for their still-growing student population. It deserves voter support.

Equally important Proposition L would raise $7.5 million to build and equip a new high school science building and a combination library and administration center. Built for 1,200 students in 1957, the high school now holds 1,750 ninth- through 12th-graders and is being reconstructed to house as many as 2,500 by the turn of the century. Library and lab space are scarce.

The measures need only a simple majority for approval because they are based on bonds passed by voters in 1975 and 1977, before Proposition 13 imposed the two-thirds-vote requirement for authorization of new borrowing. The school district is asking for the right to use its previously granted bonding authority.

Together, the two propositions would add just $22 annually in taxes per $100,000 assessed valuation on a home over the next 10 years. That seems a small price to pay to provide Carlsbad’s children with up-to-date science labs, libraries and auditoriums.