Educators in Big Jam : Schools: Canceled vote on construction has districts searching for new answers to severe overcrowding.

As many youngsters head back to crowded classes today, Orange County school administrators are reeling from a recent decision by the state Legislature to keep a school construction bond measure off the November ballot.

A statewide measure that would have funneled $1 billion into elementary and secondary school construction was defeated by voters in the June election, but school officials in overcrowded districts such as Santa Ana, Saddleback Valley and Capistrano were relying heavily on passage of a second ballot proposition in November to follow through on long-planned projects.

“We were very, very disappointed to hear that it would not be on the ballot,” said Don Champlin, Santa Ana Unified’s acting superintendent. “We have major housing needs, and that’s really the only avenue of financing open to us.

“I feel we probably have a need that’s as great or greater than most any of the districts around,” Champlin said. “Basically, we have four students sitting in every three chairs.”

On the final night of the 1994 legislative session on Aug. 31, lawmakers killed all new bond proposals for the November election, including $2 billion for schools, $100 million for libraries and $1.1 billion to build prisons.

Orange County education officials lamented the move as shortsighted.

“What it probably means is more portable buildings, more expense,” said John F. Dean, superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education. “We’re putting teachers in almost an untenable situation with so many children in the classroom.

“I’m amazed that the Legislature made that decision, because the need is desperate. The increased enrollment going into already overcrowded schools is unthinkable. But it’s real.”

Figures from the County Department of Education show that Santa Ana Unified has grown 5% since the 1990-91 school year and now uses 450 portable classrooms, Saddleback Valley Unified School District has grown by 10% in that same time period, and the Capistrano Unified School District has grown by more than 16%.

The three districts are scrambling to come up with a plan for living without the bond money.

“We feel horrible about it because we were really dependent on that issue being on the ballot in November and being approved by the voters,” said Jacqueline Price, a spokeswoman for Capistrano Unified School District, which opens five new elementary schools packed with 3,000 students today.

“In a rapidly growing district such as Capistrano we are in need of building schools every year,” she said. “It’s going to cause us to go back and regroup and figure out how to deal with the issue of growth.”

The district was counting on bond money to build a middle school in the Las Flores area, an elementary school near Coto de Caza, and another in northern Aliso Viejo, she said.

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Saddleback Valley Unified Supt. Peter Hartman said the school board only Wednesday approved an expansion of Trabuco Hills High School that relies largely on bond money.

That money has now evaporated.

“It looks like we may be growing by 1,200 or 1,300 students this year. We either have to build schools or go on a multitrack, year-round schedule, and most of the people in our community are not happy with that alternative,” he said.

Michael G. Vail, Santa Ana Unified’s top facilities planner, said the district was expecting to receive $30 million from passage of a November school bond measure. The money would have gone to three new school construction projects and three remodeling projects that are “basically in limbo now,” he said.

They include construction of a school slated to be built at a Bristol Street shopping center on land the state is expected to purchase, a new school to be called Jim Thorpe Elementary School for which the district has already purchased land and a major addition to John Muir Elementary School.

William D. Dawson, acting state schools superintendent, expressed dismay in a Sept. 1 letter to Gov. Pete Wilson that the Legislature “did not give the people of California the opportunity to choose whether or not to build vitally needed California schools with a school bond measure” and urged Wilson to call a special session to get the measure on the November ballot.

“The defeat of SB 189 by three votes deprived the people of their chance to build new schools and repair deteriorating classrooms for hundreds of thousands of students throughout the state,” he wrote.

State officials say Orange County was among five counties that cast the most “no” votes against Proposition 1B in June, sending that construction bond measure to defeat. But local school officials said Wednesday they were confident that higher turnout in the general election would have turned the vote in their favor.

“Hopefully, the Legislature and the governor will resolve this somehow to try to get it on for the next June ballot,” Hartman said.

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