Irvine Unified Counts Losses

Staffing cuts, the loss of arts, music and technology programs or a bit of each are the unappetizing choices facing trustees in the Irvine Unified School District a day after voters narrowly rejected a parcel tax designed to close an estimated $4-million deficit.

Supt. Patricia Clark White was moved to tears by her district’s inability to muster a few more percentage points of support Tuesday for a $95-a-parcel tax. Now she faces the task of bringing recommendations for cuts to her elected board within 60 days.

The third failure of a parcel tax in the university town can only hurt the district’s acclaimed academic and artistic programs, board President Mike Regele said. Previously, board members have said they might have to cut as many as 100 jobs to balance their books.

Staff members “will sit down and figure out where we will cut,” Regele said. “It’s going to be deep and serious, and the Irvine Unified School District will never be the same again.”

While Irvine was pondering cuts, two other districts were in an acquisitive mood, looking to snap up land for new schools in the wake of their school bond victories.

So it went Wednesday, the day after voters sent educators a mixed message, simultaneously embracing multimillion-dollar bonds to build schools and alleviate crowding in the Santa Ana and Capistrano districts while leaving Irvine the odd district out.

All three measures required two-thirds’ support. Capistrano’s $65-million measure garnered 72.9% of the vote; Santa Ana’s $145-million levy passed with 69.8%; and Irvine’s lagged at 62.4%.

County Education Department Supt. John F. Dean credited the disparate results to different situations. While voters could sympathize with the facilities and space crunches in Santa Ana and South County, they may have had difficulty relating to more nebulous program cuts.

“You drive past a school and see peeling paint--that’s very visible,” Dean said. “The programs aren’t visible except to the kids and parents at the schools.”

Irvine’s defeat didn’t dampen bond optimism in other districts.

At least three local school districts--Anaheim City, Orange and Placentia-Yorba Linda--are taking a hard look at their facilities needs to see if they should pursue bond measures too.

In Anaheim, where overcrowding has forced schools onto a year-round, staggered-start schedule, hardship funding from the state is helping to relieve some congestion, said Supt. Roberta Thompson, but another bond attempt is inevitable. Voters rejected a $48-million bond issue in April 1998.

“We certainly are going to have to go for a bond again--no doubt about that,” Thompson said. “The question isn’t, ‘Do we need it?’ It’s about timing.”

One factor that will probably play into timing decisions is the fate of a March 2000 ballot initiative that would allow bonds to pass with a simple 50%-plus-one majority.

School officials in Huntington Beach, where residents will vote on a $123-million bond Tuesday, like their odds.

“I have a lot of faith the voters in this community really understand the need for us to improve our school facilities for kids,” Supt. Susan Roper said. “So I’m expecting that passage to occur here as well.”

Bond consultant Larry Remer worked with Huntington Beach, Santa Ana and Capistrano. He said active fund-raising by labor unions, business groups and parent organizations allowed for a focused effort.

Canvassing and calling parents was a key strategy in Santa Ana, where the construction of two high schools and 11 elementary schools is expected to begin within 18 months.

“We knocked on doors four or five times, called three or four times and mailed [brochures] another five times,” said Remer, of the San Diego Primacy Group.

Both successful districts pushed supporters to vote absentee to make sure that bond backers didn’t forget to visit the polls. Capistrano volunteers draped residents’ doors with fliers, walked voting precincts and made reminder phone calls up until the polls closed Tuesday night.

“I’ve never seen a campaign this focused,” Trustee John Casabianca said.

Times correspondents Chris Ceballos and Rebecca Harris contributed to this report.