Failure of Bond Issue Raises Pressure on Fresno Schools

A boy tells secrets to a psychologist amid clutter in a storage room. It’s the only private place on an overcrowded campus in a San Joaquin Valley school district that couldn’t pass a local bond measure.

“We get federal and state dollars for teachers and supplies,” said Principal Jim Newton of Burroughs Elementary in inner-city Fresno. “But facilities are what’s killing us.”

A shortage of classroom space throughout the valley makes students and staff feel anonymous and anxious as they squeeze into tighter spaces, wait in longer lines and juggle more complicated schedules.

“It’s like homelessness. Unless you feel it, it’s hard to sympathize,” said Pete Mehas, superintendent of Fresno County schools, the San Joaquin Valley’s largest district and among its fastest-growing.

The number of children in valley schools has grown nearly 50% since 1982. More of the same is expected over the next decade.

Meanwhile, the state has met less than half the demand for school construction funds. The backlog is $5.7 billion statewide even though two bond measures passed last year.

Burroughs reflects the problems facing many valley schools--if not now, then in the future.

Burroughs is so crowded that an auditorium stage and a hallway were converted into classrooms. And 650 children in its service area ride buses to other schools.

Teachers say young children don’t seem to notice that they are crowded, but administrators worry that children will feel anonymous or neglected, and thus be more likely to withdraw or misbehave. They worry that interest in school or feelings of self-worth will wane.

Burroughs second-grade teacher Sandy Fox said the mood became testy and anxious last year when hundreds of children waited on campus for buses to other schools. Fox saw more misbehavior, but felt most haunted by the sight of small children who arrived half an hour before the cafeteria opened to wait for breakfast in lines three classrooms long.

She thinks they worried that time or food would run out.

“I’m ashamed to say I don’t know that many students,” Newton said. “When a little guy comes up to me with these wonderful eyes and says ‘Hello, Mr. Newton,’ I say ‘Hello, young man.’ instead of saying his name. It’s sad. It shouldn’t be that way. I used to know the names of everyone in the school.”

Most public education funding is based on attendance, so it increases along with the population. But construction money isn’t built-in.

Local bonds are supposed to help fill the gap, but officials say it’s hard to wring a two-thirds vote for property tax increases from a mostly retired or childless population.

Only 30% of the state’s population has school age children and thus a direct stake in school construction, said James Fulton of the state Department of Education.

In 1994, Californians will vote on whether to lower the approval requirement for local school bonds from two-thirds to a simply majority. That would solve the problem for places such as Fresno, where a bond measure recently failed even though 62% voted in favor of it.

“That’s a landslide anywhere else, but not for kids,” Newton said.

Election results have been similar throughout the valley. In March, only three of eight local bond measures won two-thirds votes. If a simple majority had been enough, all but one would have passed.

“Why should a minority be able to determine what everyone else wants?” said Laura Walker, a lobbyist for the California School Boards Assn.

But some say that’s just as it should be.

“There’s always somebody wanting to tax the homeowner another couple of dollars,” Fresno resident Kathie Vines said. “They should do like the rest of us: If they have the money, they can spend it. If they don’t, they can’t.”

Vines thinks some people vote against school bonds to gain attention for grievances against other government agencies.

“We’re redirecting our anger,” Vines said. “Eventually, they’re going to have to make changes if they just can’t get the money.”

Nancy Richardson, Fresno Unified’s board president, learned when she walked precincts for a bond campaign that some people vote no because they disapprove of federal immigration policy.

“Some do not feel they should support a school system that is crowded in part because people have come here from other parts of the world,” she said.

Others worry that the money will go for higher salaries instead of buildings.

Doris Drake, who voted against Fresno’s bonds, thinks voter distrust stems from a seemingly steady stream of news reports about financial scandals at local and state levels.

“We never know where that money goes,” she said.

Meanwhile, more than a third of Fresno’s elementary schools are on space-saving year-round calendars.

That means fewer decorated bulletin boards greet children on the first day because teachers didn’t have summer weeks to prepare them. On the year-round calendar, one teacher moves out of a classroom on Friday so another can move in on Monday.

Mello-Roos parcel taxes on new subdivisions have helped in previously rural areas but have a tendency to squelch home sales. And they don’t work in areas where most growth is urban infill.

So Fresno’s Roosevelt High School, among the valley’s largest with 3,200 students, is handling the facilities crunch in two new ways:

* An “extended day” schedule spreads students among three starting times so at least a third of the students aren’t on campus for part of the day.

* A “mini-school” configuration breaks the school into several entities. Principal Jane Hammaker said smaller groupings restore feelings of community and belonging.

“Sometimes, adversity helps us be more creative,” Hammaker said.