Schools’ Plea Against All-Year Schedule Fails

The Valley Center Union school district lost its appeal to a state board to allow the district to avoid year-round education while maintaining a high priority for state construction money.

On a 4-2 vote, the state allocation board found that year-round education would not place an unreasonable financial or programmatic burden on the 2,400-student elementary school district.

“The district just didn’t make an adequate case,” said state Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Sacramento), who cast a vote against the district.

“We had a review committee go out and investigate the site, we looked at their schools and their potential costs, and we did not see anything that was unique or critical.”

District Supt. Jeff Mulford had argued that the district’s small number of students spread out over a large area made it financially troublesome to go on a year-round multitrack schedule. Mulford had projected an increase of $150,000 a year in busing costs alone to the district, a figure the state disputes.

Mulford said the district’s options are both limited and painful. The schools might be forced to go year-round to receive $6 million in state construction funds needed for a proposed $12-million middle school, he said.

Valley Center Union is the third district in the state to lose an appeal to the board for a waiver from the year-round education condition in the state construction program. The Jamul-Dulzura Union school district and a handful of other small districts in the state have been granted waivers under a special method of calculating enrollment that discounts students in extremely isolated areas. Otherwise, districts are required to adopt year-round education if they want to be eligible for state construction funds for new schools.

In the past six weeks, Escondido Union Elementary and San Marcos Unified school districts have both voted to go year-round.

Year-round education expands the capacity of a school by having part of the students and teachers on vacation at all times.