School Board to Put Bond Measure to Vote

Bolstered by the success of neighboring districts with school bonds in recent years, the Las Virgenes Unified School District board decided Monday to go to voters with a bond measure Nov. 4.

If the measure is successful, the bond money would pay for general maintenance work on all 13 district campuses--some of them nearly 30 years old--as well as finance the construction of two elementary schools and a middle school.

“We’ve had needs for a long time that we haven’t been able to meet,” said district Supt. John Fitzpatrick. “We are in dire need at this point. We’ve got leaking roofs, electrical problems that we haven’t been able to fix.”

The district will ask for $29 per $100,000 of assessed property valuation per year for a fund totaling more than $50 million, Fitzpatrick said.

Much of the district’s financial need relates to work that was put off over the years for lack of funds, officials said. In the last year, when the district received state funds to reduce class sizes in the primary grades, a new problem arose: accommodating 43 new portable classrooms on already crowded elementary school campuses.

If the measure passes with a two-thirds majority, the first priority would be repairing some of the utility problems at several schools and building a new middle school campus.

The last school bond passed in the district was in 1970. Although two parcel tax initiatives--in which homeowners would pay a flat annual tax of $150 to hire teachers to reduce class sizes--failed in recent years, district officials are hopeful that this bond will be successful.

“It’s really the time right now,” Fitzpatrick said. “Several [school] districts have had success with getting bonds passed, and the economy is better right at this time.”