A LOOK AHEAD * Seeking to fix campuses or build new ones to meet growing enrollment . . .

Principal Linda Cordero of Grandview School in La Puente knows when too many boys on her campus are using the bathrooms--because the girls cannot flush at the same time.

The culprit: Inadequate plumbing at the 40-year-old campus. Now Cordero and school officials in seven districts throughout Los Angeles County are hoping voters will solve such problems by approving bond issues Tuesday.

The bond requests range from $100 million in the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District to $21 million for the Glendora Unified School District. Measures are also before voters in Claremont, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Rowland Heights, the Wiseburn district in the Hawthorne-El Segundo area and in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Officials hope for an infusion of cash that can be matched with state funds and be used to build new facilities where schools strain under bulging enrollments, or to modernize aging structures. They say bond money is a relatively cheap way to repair roofs and plumbing, and rewire classrooms for computers.

At Claremont’s Vista del Valle Elementary School, turning on the microwave oven in the teachers lounge has been known to knock out half the power to a nearby classroom. At La Puente High School, to the west, classrooms date to 1915, and when it rains, it pours--literally--into the buildings.

And the plumbing is so old in Rancho Vista Elementary School in Rolling Hills Estates that it still operates on a septic system. If the power goes down, the toilets won’t flush, say officials.

That’s just like the plumbing woes at Grandview, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school in La Puente.

“We wouldn’t expect adults to be productive in such an environment. Yet we’re asking our children to learn in places like this every day,” said Cordero, the principal.

Opponents have emerged in a few of the elections. While acknowledging the problems, they contend that the districts should have been saving for repairs all along. They say it takes 30 to 40 years to pay off the bonds, which would saddle the next generation with today’s debt.

“We don’t want to take out a mortgage on our homes to be paid off by our heirs,” said Dick Hall of the Committee for No on Y, which opposes the Claremont school district’s $48.9-million bond measure.

School districts are turning to bond measures with increased regularity because taxpayers have become more willing to invest in education, administrators said. The money couldn’t come soon enough for some, they add, because maintenance and improvements have been deferred for more than two decades since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978.

Cashed-strapped schools are having to find more space so they can join the state’s drive to reduce class size. Plus, there is the incentive of matching state funds through Proposition 1A, officials say.

Such arguments have prompted voters to pass an increasing number of school bond measures recently, clearing the two-thirds-majority hurdle required for such expenditures. In 1998 and 1999, 35 of 59 bond measures won approval in Los Angeles County.

But with that two-thirds requirement, any opposition can be deadly, experts warn. “In an election where one ‘no’ vote cancels out two ‘yeses,’ even minimal opposition can be very serious,” said Ariane Lew, a consultant on the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District’s $46-million bond bid.

That was the case last November when a $52-million bond measure for the William S. Hart Union High School District in growing Santa Clarita was defeated by 125 votes.

School boosters there are going back to voters Tuesday with another $52-million measure and again face opposition. So they are pulling out all the stops: phone banks, door-to-door campaigning and dire warnings.

Administrators say that next year, overcrowded Valencia High School will begin classes at 6:40 a.m. and end them as late as 8 p.m. The relatively new campus was built for 2,000 students, but currently enrolls 2,600 because of booming development.

Officials say Santa Clarita’s Measure S would help pay for five new schools to accommodate a student population they claim will nearly double in five years.

The measure would cost voters $17 per $100,000 of assessed value annually, officials estimate, and would bring in $143 million in matching funds from the state. Those dollars, combined with developer fees, would give the district $294 million to renovate existing campuses and build the new schools.

An opponent in the conservative northern Los Angeles County community, however, says there is plenty of money available. Cam Noltemeyer said more classrooms are needed but that, even without the measure, the district will collect $200 million in developers fees and matching state funds.

In Claremont, it has been far from smooth sailing for supporters of the $48.9-million bond measure. Measure Y would add about $98 per $100,000 of assessed value to property tax bills each year.

Much of the controversy surrounds plans to use part of the money for a high school stadium. Claremont currently rents a stadium from the neighboring Bonita Unified School District.

Trying to appease neighbors of Claremont High School, the school board recently said it would not build the stadium on campus.

Thanks to careful coalition building, bond backers in Hacienda-La Puente Unified, Rowland Unified, Glendora, Palos Verdes Peninsula and the Wiseburn school districts have avoided such opposition.

Boosters in Rowland Unified, a district of 20,000 students, have worked on the campaign for Measure R for more than a year, winning the endorsement of parents, teachers, the chamber of commerce and real estate brokers in Rowland Heights. The measure would add $39 per $100,000 of assessed value to annual property tax bills. A district survey in November found that 63% of voters would definitely support it.

In the neighboring Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District, which serves 23,000 students, bond boosters are banking on support from the neighborhoods of well-heeled Hacienda Heights and working-class La Puente.

“This election will be won in each neighborhood,” La Puente High Principal Jim Douglas said of the measure, which would add $58 per $100,000 of assessed value to annual tax bills.

At the Wiseburn School District, which straddles Hawthorne, a corner of El Segundo and an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, a coalition of parents and educators is seeking $35 million to build an elementary school and a middle school. They are looking for a repeat of 1997’s election results, when voters passed a $14-million bond.

Supt. Don Brann said, “We’re going for totally brand new schools for a brand new century.”

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Bond Measures on the Ballot

Voters in seven school districts go to the polls Tuesday to decide the fate of a series of school bond measures. Each one needs two-thirds approval to pass.

* Claremont Unified School District. Measure Y, $48.91 million for a new elementary school, additional classrooms, renovations and repairs.

* Glendora Unified School District. Measure G, $21 million for additional classrooms, renovations and repairs.

* Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District. Measure A, $100 million for additional classrooms, renovations and repairs.

* Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District. Measure K, $46 million for renovations and repairs.

* Rowland Unified School District. Measure R, $70 million for additional classrooms, renovations and repairs.

* William S. Hart Union High School District. Measure S, $52 million for new schools, additional classrooms, renovations and repairs.

* Wiseburn School District. Measure E, $35 million for new middle and elementary schools on the site of existing facilities.

Source: Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder