Renovation Proposal for 2 High Schools Drawing Fire : Education: Critics say it was inappropriate for the South Bay district to take on the $1-million debt because a November vote may dissolve it.

To trustees of the South Bay Union High School District, their recent vote to proceed with up to $1 million in renovations to the district’s two high schools was far from controversial.

But the decision has drawn heavy criticism from some trustees of Redondo Beach City and Manhattan Beach City school districts. The districts, along with the Hermosa Beach City School District, send their teen-agers to the South Bay district’s two campuses.

Critics say it was inappropriate for the South Bay district to take on so much debt when voters in November will consider a major reorganization plan that could result in the district’s dissolution.

If the so-called split unification plan is approved, the South Bay district would cease to exist and its two campuses, along with its assets and debts, would be transferred to the districts in Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach.

The newly revamped districts would then become kindergarten through 12th grade unified school districts. Hermosa Beach, however, would continue to operate as an elementary school district; its high school students would attend classes in either Manhattan Beach or Redondo Beach.

South Bay district trustees identified about $600,000 in renovations needed for 75 classrooms at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach and Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach. Among the slated improvements are new heating and lighting systems, draperies, flooring, ceilings, desks, windows and roof repairs. The board is expected to give final approval to the work bids on Wednesday.

The school board has not yet decided how it will spend the remaining $400,000, although new textbooks and computers are high on the list, district officials said.

The district had considered taking out a $1-million loan to pay for the repairs and renovations, but trustees decided it would be cheaper to borrow the money from a $14.8-million reserve fund established through the sale of a closed school site several years ago. The trustees agreed to repay the reserve fund with interest over five years using income generated by developer fees.

District administrators said the renovations are badly needed and are the last in a previously approved five-year spending plan that called for about $8.5 million in repairs at the two high schools.

“It’s clear from parents, students and staff input that these repairs are needed,” Assistant Supt. Jerry Goddard said. “The question is: Should we continue with the plan or should we bring everything to a halt thinking that unification may occur? Our feeling is that if we go through split unification, that they will be able to turn over two high schools in good working order to the new districts.”

However, the spending plan came as such a shock to Valerie Dombrowski, president of the Redondo Beach City School District Board of Trustees, that she cut her vacation a week short to attend the South Bay district’s meeting last Saturday.

Although she did not dispute that the high schools are in need of repair, she said she believes the district should have waited until after the election before deciding to spend so much money.

“I thought it was quite nervy on their part,” Dombrowski said. The new school boards “will take on their assets and liabilities. . . . These things show (South Bay Union officials) are going to go ahead and do what they want to do” regardless of the will of the people, she asserted.

Bart Swanson, another member of the Redondo Beach City school board agreed that “it just seemed the board was intent on going out and doing something.”

“With the election coming up . . . my basic perception of the way people in the community feel is that (the South Bay Union school board) is kind of a lame duck right now,” Swanson said. “So why go out and make commitments and put the district in a state of indebtedness when there might be other people who will have to deal with it?”

They also questioned whether the South Bay district had properly notified the public of its intentions, and they expressed concern that no public meeting was scheduled before the vote.

But administrators of the South Bay Union High School District, who insisted they followed all notification requirements, bristled at the criticism.

“We’re not here to do what the elementary districts want us to do,” said Lyn Flory, president of the South Bay Union High School District Board of Trustees. “We’re here to run a school and a business. We cannot use unification as a criteria for everything we do.”