Money to Spend, but Where?

Armed with a $145-million school bond issue--Orange County’s largest ever--the Santa Ana Unified School District is undertaking the largest school building project in the county’s history.

But now that the county’s most overcrowded schools have the funds to build another 11 elementary and two high schools, the question is where to put them in a city with little available undeveloped land.

The short answer: wherever they will fit.

There is no science to finding sites for schools. District officials said they look anywhere that is safe for children, although new regulations arising from a Los Angeles school built on polluted land threaten to further complicate the process.

Nine sites have been publicly identified as possibilities, and they include parcels with vacant houses, a site occupied by an insurance company, an industrial area and land in the Armstrong Ranch, owned by the Segerstrom family.

Although the district has a real estate agent, most sites have been recommended through word of mouth. For example, school board President John Palacio heard that Farmers Insurance might relocate and told the staff about the site. News stories then confirmed it, said Michael Vail, assistant superintendent for facilities, planning and governmental relations.

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So far only one proposed location includes occupied homes. District officials said it will be the board’s policy to avoid displacing residents, where possible.

In the 1980s when the district built King Elementary School near Bristol Street and McFadden Avenue, 35 families lost their homes, an episode school officials have vowed not to repeat, Vail said.

In looking at other types of sites, however, a new layer of red tape now complicates the selection process. In the wake of Los Angeles Unified’s most infamous construction catastrophe--building the $200-million Belmont Learning Complex on contaminated soil--all school districts now must submit site plans to the state Department of Toxic Substances Control and the state Department of Education.

While legislation changing the rules doesn’t formally take effect until Jan. 1, the state Department of Education began requiring the plans in June.

“If you followed the rules before, the site was abated before you built or you just didn’t build at all,” Vail said.

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Because of the scope of Santa Ana’s building needs, fees associated with such detailed site plans could amount to several hundred thousand dollars and months of additional labor. A review will cost $1,500 per plan. If a site requires the next step, a preliminary endangerment assessment, fees jump to between $8,000 and $12,000, said Hamid Saedfar, chief of the toxic substances department’s Southern California cleanup branch.

“Depending on what they find and how extensive remediation may have to be, that’s what will determine the cost,” Saedfar said. “Our program is fee-for-service, and if there is something like ground contamination, we have to get the community involved so they understand our decisions. That has to be charged to the projects.”

So far, Toxic Substances Control has reviewed 44 plans across the state, of which 29 need further risk assessment, said Barbara Coler, division chief of statewide cleanup operations in Sacramento.

The department’s goal, she said, ultimately is to help school districts make better site selections, not to encumber them.

“This first year, you’re going to see more concerns or complaints about this new process, but then as they get into the mode, there are greater cost benefits to making sure we have safe schools for children,” Coler said.

“This is coming with some angst for everybody, but it’s a really good opportunity for districts like Santa Ana and L.A. Unified, which are so overcrowded. We’re trying to help them make better business decisions.”

Santa Ana and Los Angeles schools are among the most crowded in California. Only those two districts received a portion of some special funding to mitigate crowding, set aside from Proposition 1A, the $9.2-billion statewide bond measure passed last year.

How crowded are Santa Ana schools?

In 1974, the district was growing by about 1,400 students a year. In recent years, the growth has been 2,000 students a year at 48 campuses, many of which have portable classrooms taking up much needed recreational space.

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The state recommends that a school occupy about 10 acres for every 600 students, Vail said, but 12 of the district’s schools have more than 200 students per acre. Garfield Elementary School just east of downtown Santa Ana has 364 students per acre.

In the last 10 years, the Santa Ana district added 17 new schools, the most aggressive building program in Southern California. In the same period, Los Angeles Unified, with 14 times more students, has built eight schools, Vail said.

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Searching for School Sites

The overcrowded Santa Ana Unified School District is gearing up to build 11 new elementary schools and two new high schools thanks to a $145-million school bond issue--the county’s largest ever--passed by voters last month. In a mature city with little in the way of undeveloped land, it will be a challenge to find sites that don’t displace existing residents or raise environmental or safety concerns.

Source: Santa Ana Unified School District