Schools Again Push for Bond Issue : Education: Officials lead tour of deteriorating campus to prod legislators into putting the funding request on the March ballot.

Perched at the highest point in Pasadena atop an outcropping of bedrock is Washington Middle School, a 72-year-old Mediterranean Revival-style building that movie companies use to convey an immediately recognizable image of a traditional campus.

But the building that as a movie backdrop looks elegant and solid is rotting from the inside out. Ceiling tiles have fallen in the gymnasium and auditorium. Floor tiles are worn through in hallways. Window sashes have been shredded by dry rot. And, except for the fees paid by film crews, the school district has little money to pay for repairs.

Across California, school districts are struggling to fix old buildings, build campuses to house about 140,000 new students a year statewide and retrofit outmoded classrooms to install modern technology--all with little help from the state.

Having failed last fall to convince the Legislature to place a $3-billion bond issue on the March 26 ballot, the state’s school districts, public colleges and education groups are trying to revive the issue. They are cajoling, pressuring and seeking to embarrass legislators into taking action prior to a looming Jan. 8 deadline for getting it on the ballot.

Republican legislators blocked the bond measure before adjourning this fall after failing to persuade Democrats to pair the school bonds with state prison bonds.

On Wednesday, officials from Pasadena and neighboring districts in Burbank and Glendale took reporters and political candidates on a tour of Washington Middle School, seeking to highlight its dilapidated condition, its lack of a science laboratory and its inaccessibility to disabled students.

“Our buildings, our classrooms and our laboratories are tired and worn out,” said George Padilla, president of the Pasadena school board. “The least we can do is convince our legislators to place the school bond issue on the ballot and let the voters of California decide.”

If the bond issue passes, Pasadena would receive about $4.2 million for projects at 18 schools.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is in line for about $5 million. But even that would leave a backlog of more than $625 million-plus in repair and construction projects.

Julie Korenstein, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education, said the district may have to try to convince local voters to pass a bond if the state measure fails. “What we’re learning is we can’t rely on the state to provide money for school construction, roofs, blacktop, air-conditioning and so forth,” she said. “We’re way past crisis stage.”

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said the needs are great throughout California. In a telephone interview, she said that some children in San Diego receive counseling in a broken-down school bus up on blocks. Parents in Kensington, an affluent part of the Berkeley hills, replace windows themselves. A school outside Sacramento, she said, could not accept the donation of a fully equipped computer lab because leaky roofs would have destroyed it.

“This is the biggest need in the state of California,” Eastin said, “and failing to allow voters to vote on the bonds would be unconscionable.”

The state’s 1,000 public school districts would divide about $2 billion of the bond money and the rest would go for higher education projects.

The state has given districts the approval for $800 million worth of construction and repair projects but has not supplied the money to pay for them; an additional $7 billion in projects is being reviewed.

The last successful school bond issue was in 1992, when voters approved issuing $900 million in bonds. A bond issue on the ballot in June 1994 fell just short of the number of votes needed for passage.

“If there’s a crisis confronting higher education now, it’s on the capital and not the operating side,” said Barry Munitz, the chancellor of the 22-campus California State University system.

Munitz said the Cal State system, the University of California and community colleges have not had enough money to keep their buildings from deteriorating.

“People tend to think about the bond issue as a bunch of new buildings,” he said. But only two buildings would be built with the $300 million CSU would receive if the measure passed. The rest, he said, is for “seismic retrofitting, leaking roofs and other things that are put aside in a budget crunch.”

But the bond issue faces opposition because of two seemingly unrelated issues. Many Republicans want to package the school bonds with prison bonds, which Democrats refuse to do. And some Republicans want to lower construction workers’ wages on public works projects, cutting construction costs by 15%.

Assemblyman Steve Baldwin of El Cajon, the Republican vice chairman of the education committee, said his party would offer its own school bond measure in January. He declined to discuss whether it would be linked to prison bonds or prevailing wage rates.

Wednesday’s event in Pasadena was aimed at persuading two local Republicans who are considered key votes--Bill Hoge of Pasadena, who voted no when the bond issue was in the Assembly in September, and James Rogan of Glendale, who abstained. But neither showed up or sent representatives.

Rogan did not return a call seeking a comment. Jim Kjol, Hoge’s chief of staff, said Hoge was still “evaluating” the state bond issue and planned to visit schools in his district soon, “with no press conference, no political games, no showboating for the cameras.”

Times Education Writer Amy Wallace contributed to this story.