Santa Rosa schools turn to voters for building, tech upgrades

Some Santa Rosa schools started off the academic year with leaking roofs and faulty heating or cooling systems on the first, slightly drizzly day of classes Aug. 20. Fixing issues like these, according to school officials, is why the county's largest school district hopes to pass two bonds totaling $229 million this November.

The bonds, one for the elementary school district and one for secondary schools, are needed in part because state funding plummeted during the recession and has yet to fully rebound, making it difficult to keep up with standard maintenance, changes in building safety requirements and new technology, officials say. Also, they say, the district has identified many large-scale projects that could never be funded with the annual money it receives from the state.

'We want kids to be in safe, modern, clean facilities,' said Superintendent Socorro Shiels. 'We're excited to work with the community to focus on school facilities and technology, to make sure parents' wishes of their students being college and career-ready are really met.'

The bond measures are meant to help fund goals of modernizing schools and making them safer laid out in the district's new strategic plan, said school board President Bill Carle. To determine exactly what was required, district officials polled all their schools, then compiled a list of the most pressing needs. Those ranged from repairing old heating and air-conditioning systems, to installing special locks that allow teachers to secure their doors from the inside in emergencies, to updating or replacing entire buildings.

Kristin Hendricks, a parent at Proctor Terrace Elementary School active in PTA and the school's site council, hopes bond money would help replace the school's 'disgusting' carpets, a project estimated to cost around $50,000. Meanwhile, the PTA has already paid for some things the bond would cover, such as installing new door locks and a new computer lab. For that reason, she said, her child's school might get less money than others.

'Do I care?' she asked. 'No.' For her, the bonds are about bringing all schools up to speed. 'My fourth-grader will soon be a seventh-grader, then an eighth-grader, and so on,' she said.

Some examples of what is driving the bond:

At James Monroe Elementary School, wireless Internet is so spotty that teachers can't reliably download applications or videos, Principal Michelle Smith said.

At Hilliard Comstock Middle School, a too-small cafeteria forces students to eat lunch outside on picnic tables, crowding under covered walkways to take shelter when it rains. These issues are common to schools across the district, said Steve Eichman, assistant superintendent of business services.

At Santa Rosa High School, perpetually leaky wood- and auto-shop roofs are emblematic of aging roofs at many schools.

'Let's start by looking up,' said auto shop teacher Mitch Utsey this week during a school facilities tour led by district staff. He pointed to a big, dark stain in the corner of the auto shop building's chipped wooden roof, which officials say needs to be remodeled. 'That leak has been going on and off since the '60s, despite everyone's best efforts to stop it. We have wonderful lifts here, great tool sets and relatively new equipment. But if they get wet, we don't have them anymore.'

And the majority of schools have portable classrooms that are on average 25 years old and reaching the end of their recommended lifespans.

Between the elementary and high school districts, officials estimated fixing all the identified problems would cost nearly $470 million, Eichman said.

The proposed bonds would pay for less than half that. Measure L would authorize $54 million for the city's elementary school district. Measure I would authorize $175 million for the high school district.

The amounts are a balance between what the district needs and what it thinks it can get, Shiels said. Each bond is expected to raise annual property tax bills by no more than $30 per assessed $100,000. Property owners historically have ended up paying less than the estimated tax rate for district bonds, Shiels added. To pass, the bonds need at least 55 percent of the votes in November.

The measures, notably, have not drawn opposition from the Sonoma County Taxpayers' Association, which is opposing the other two city school bond measures on the ballot this fall.

That's because city officials and board members met with the association and addressed some of their key concerns, said Dan Drummond, executive director of the taxpayers' association. For instance, the association worries about districts purchasing short-lived technology like computers with long-term bonds that will be due long after the technology is no longer useful.

The school board has said it will only use short-term bonds to pay for technology upgrades.

Between the two measures, just one, Measure I, received one letter of opposition.

Penned by Santa Rosa resident Michael Hilber, it alleges, in colorful language not often seen in ballot measure arguments, that the proposed technology upgrades would wrongly support the state's new Common Core standards, which he called 'a scheme cooked up by special interests with a political agenda.'

While there has been little vocal opposition to the bonds, Santa Rosa-area voters will be faced with three other tax measures this fall, including a $410 million bond for Santa Rosa Junior College.

'There are a lot of tax issues coming before voters this fall, so the logical question is, 'Why now, why not some other time?' ' school board member Frank Pugh said. 'We have gotten to a position where we have to make an investment to keep pace with what the state is thinking should be our level of infrastructure and technology.'

He added, 'I believe we get a huge benefit and return for investing in our schools.'

Since 1991, the district has asked voters to raise property taxes to pay for school improvements four times, each successful. Two measures, in 1991 and 2002, focused on middle- and high-school campuses. Two others in 1997 and 2002 were for elementary schools.

All the debt is expected to be paid in the next 15 years, Shiels said. The high schools' outstanding debt is $123.6 million and the elementary schools' is $25.1 million. That's $148.7 million in total debt, or roughly $9,000 for each of the district's 16,500 children. That compares to more than $12,500 per student for Petaluma City Schools' elementary and high school districts, which combined make up the second largest district in the county.

In total, property owners in the Santa Rosa elementary school district are paying about $25.50 per assessed $100,000 for the outstanding schools bonds. In the larger high school district, property owners are paying about $55 per $100,000 for the bonds.

The last bonds, issued in 2002, paid for replacing deteriorating portable units, removing asbestos and lead-based paint, improving Internet access, updating classrooms that were in most need of repairs at the time, and building new facilities such as Santa Rosa High School's DeSoto Hall, according to the district. Expenditures totaled $100.3 million.

Since then, buildings have aged, safety requirements have changed, and technology needs have shifted, Eichman said. That includes a new statewide Common Core test that must be taken on computers starting this year.

'Our schools have needs that could not have been addressed with the 2002 measures,' he said.

The district conducted a poll earlier this year to see how voters would respond to the bond measures. The survey polled 700 likely voters from across both districts between Jan. 30 and Feb. 11. It found at least 70 percent of them would support improving student access to computers and modern technology, as well as upgrading the electrical systems.

School officials say the bonds legally cannot be used to cover administrative salaries or pensions. An independent citizens oversight committee would ensure the tax dollars are spent only on projects outlined in the bond measures.

The district has not said which projects at which schools it will prioritize if the bonds pass. That's because they want the flexibility to cover new issues as they arise and not be restricted by overly specific language, Shiels said.

'We want to be able to do what students need done; we don't want to look back five years from now and say if we'd only used that one word we could have done that project,' she said. She added that the bonds would fund improvements at every school.

Should the measures pass, the school board will decide how the money is spent at public meetings, with input from the community, Shiels said: 'There will be a vibrant, transparent discussion process.'

You can reach Staff Writer Jamie Hansen at 521-5205 or jamie.hansen@ pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jamiehansen.