Local Schools Counting on Bond Measure

It’s been nearly three years, but things still feel very temporary at Rio Rosales School.

Every classroom on the Oxnard campus is in a boxy, dark-brown portable. So is the front office. And the cafeteria. There is no playground equipment, save for a few recently installed tetherball poles. There are no trees to shade students playing on the blacktop and no grass to cushion their falls.

Rio Rosales is a school still waiting to be built. And, like other cramped, crumbling campuses across California, it is relying on voters to pass the largest construction bond in state history--a $25.6-billion measure that will appear in separate portions on the November 2002 and March 2004 ballots.

“The bond is crucial,” said Jim Sinutko, an assistant superintendent in the Rio Elementary School District. “If it doesn’t pass, we will need to get very creative.”

In the worst-case scenario, the 350 students at Rio Rosales could be bused to other area campuses while the district searches for the $11 million it needs to build the school, Sinutko said. Because the district’s existing schools are already stretched for space, such a move would force them onto a year-round schedule.

“It’s not something anyone wants, but we have to put some ideas together on what-ifs,” he said.

The school’s struggle reflects a statewide problem, as families are moving into California faster than campuses can be built to house them. During the last five years, about 206,000 new students have entered the public school system, which now serves more than 6 million youngsters.

“The population has continued to increase, and for many years, the bonds were totally inadequate to meet the needs,” said Duwane Brooks, director of school facilities for the California Department of Education. “It caught up with us.”

This time, the state will ask voters to approve a large bond in two parts: $13.3 billion on Nov. 5 and $12.3 billion two years from now. In the first round of funding, $4.8 billion is earmarked for already approved but unfunded projects throughout the state.

In Ventura County, the needs are greatest in fast-growing districts such as Rio, Hueneme and Oxnard elementary. Those districts, on average, also have greater numbers of students from poor families and students who enter school speaking a language other than English.

The school bond “is absolutely critical in order to provide an appropriate learning environment for our children,” said Richard Duarte, superintendent of the Oxnard Elementary School District, the only district in the county forced onto a year-round schedule for lack of space.

Teachers and students rotate classrooms every three months, tiny storage spaces are packed to the ceiling, lunch is served in as many as seven shifts and few auditoriums are big enough for school gatherings. Space is so tight at Bernice Curren Elementary School that the district each year must bus 200 students to other campuses.

“Our children deserve it as much as any other child in the state does,” Duarte said, “especially in light of all the other hurdles we have to overcome.”

For now, Rio school district officials are moving ahead on plans for Rio Rosales so they can be in line for state funding if the bond passes. Sinutko said the district is applying for “hardship” status, which means the state would pick up the tab for whatever the district cannot afford.

Though homeowners in the subdivisions surrounding Rio Rosales paid into a school fund, the developer’s fees covered less than one-third of the construction and land cost.

Rio officials said they are attempting to avoid future space problems by negotiating better deals with housing developers, Supt. Yolanda Benitez said.

For example, in the case of the proposed RiverPark project--with 2,800 homes and 2.5 million square feet of commercial space--developers have agreed to donate the land and build three schools, with no guarantee of reimbursement.

“We told them the only way there could be a school opening at the same time as the homes is if they built it,” Benitez said. “Those are the ways we can make things good for the community, good for the county and good for the kids.”

Benitez also said she will walk precincts from now until November to convince Oxnard and El Rio residents to vote for the state bond measure. “It’s the most important thing,” she said.

No matter what happens, the temporary Rio Rosales cannot stay where it is now, because the portables sit on city-owned land planned for a neighborhood park.

Officials erected the school there nearly three years ago so that the permanent buildings could be constructed on 6.5 acres of district land next door. At the time, however, they anticipated construction starting by this year, Sinutko said.

Money from developers’ fees could be used to move the portable buildings, but some fear that would only further delay construction of a permanent school.

Rio Rosales parents, meanwhile, are eager to see the school and the park come to fruition.

“I’m very frustrated,” said Kathy Bilodeau, who lives across the street from Rio Rosales. Her son is a second-grader at the school. “When we moved here they made it seem like within a year or two the school would be there. Now they’re saying fall of 2004. Where is our tax money going?”

Principal Bernie Lopez-Gonzales has heard most of the complaints.

“It’s the No. 1 concern,” she said. Since she started the job last fall, she said she has tried to make the school feel more homey. Students painted a map of the United States on the blacktop and a mural on the side of one of the portables. They brought in planters in an attempt to add some color to the brown-and-gray landscape.

“The outside needs some assistance,” she said, “but inside it’s just like any other classroom.”

Still, parents say their children come home with badly scraped knees and ripped pants from falling on the blacktop. They complain about the heat, because there is no covered area to shield students from the sun during recess.

Connie Hammond, whose 9-year-old son, Matthew, is a fourth-grader at Rio Rosales, said she has tried to make the best of dealing with the interim school.

“The faculty is great, and at least it’s close enough for him to ride his bike,” she said.

But Hammond said she wants a permanent school, not portables. And she does not think parents will tolerate their children being bused to other campuses or put on year-round schedules in the event the bond money doesn’t come through.

“That would be a terrible thing--I wouldn’t be willing to do it,” she said.