School Decision Tests Faith

The Santa Ana school board has reversed course and decided not to build an elementary school near some of its toniest neighborhoods. This gets Supt. Al Mijares off the hook with neighbors, but it puts off even further the construction of a badly needed school.

Last month, Mijares said the overcrowded district could use land other than the 9-acre parcel near Floral Park that it bought for the Lorin Griset Elementary School. The district hasn’t yet found the other land. It estimates the new school will go up in cost by more than $5 million and take an extra two years to build. But that’s more of the same in a district where officials have so mishandled their $145 million in local school bonds that they will build four new schools instead of the 13 originally promised.

Mijares’ optimistic promise to find land in a virtually built-out community represents a profound change from last year, when the superintendent told nearby residents who opposed the proposed Griset school site that “we have scoured the district” looking for another site.

The location is ideal for a new school, he said then. Last week, however, he changed that assessment to “Lorin Griset was not the best location for a school.” Santa Ana parents must be getting whiplash from these colliding statements. Mijares says district officials weren’t being forthcoming last year about problems with the Griset site. That gives the public little reason to give him credence this year.

Mijares’ change of heart is obviously propelled by the new political reality after the February recall of school board member Nativo V. Lopez. After the bond measure passed in 1999, Lopez and his allies injected themselves into the contracting process, slowing business so much that the district missed out on a round of state matching funds.

Since then, costs have escalated and the district was forced to shrink its ambitious construction plans. Lopez deserved the criticisms of recall proponents that he was putting his personal political agenda ahead of the welfare of the district’s largely impoverished students.

“Three years and not one new school,” complained Rob Richardson during his successful campaign to replace Lopez on the board.

Make that seven years, thanks to Richardson’s newly forged majority. With the Griset site dead, the district now estimates it will have the elementary school ready to open in fall 2006.

If Mijares can find another site, terrific. Open Griset in 2004, as originally planned, and start the process for the second needed school.

Meanwhile, Santa Ana’s schoolchildren are still waiting for leadership that will put their interests first.