Close to Home: Recovery from fires requires investing more in local education as well

Since we reopened after the October wildfires, Santa Rosa City Schools has lost 575 students. Nearly 300 of those students have left Sonoma County. That is 3.5 percent of the enrollment of our district. We have no idea how many more families are barely holding on, in temporary living situations, until the end of the school year. If anecdotal reporting is correct, that number is significant.

It’s also our understanding that many of those families are not direct fire victims but secondary victims - people squeezed out of their homes in our housing crisis intensified by fires or are people who lost jobs as a result of the fires.

So I share The Press Democrat Editorial Board’s skepticism of the rosy pictures painted by economists about our recovery (“The sum of setbacks could be greater than numbers,” March 6) and agree that we cannot lose the sense of urgency driving our recovery efforts.

This recovery obviously requires us to rebuild lost homes and build new housing - in big numbers and as quickly as possible. But the effort can’t be focused solely on structures. In parallel, it needs to include building community resiliency through investing in education. We need to invest in education to strengthen our economy, to create a draw for professionals and businesses, and most immediately, to build our workforce.

Most comprehensive disaster recovery plans stress the importance of strengthening local education and high school career pathways. This should be no surprise. High school career pathways have the ability to grow the local workforce, and, in general, the health and economic strength of a community is closely linked with the community’s level of educational attainment.

There is a high return on investing in our students so they graduate and are prepared to pursue higher education. High school dropouts are three times as likely to go to prison and twice as likely to be unemployed, suffer from substance abuse, and to receive public assistance. These struggles result in a net cost to the community. High school graduates, on the other hand, generate a net economic gain. Two-year degree holders double that gain. Bachelor degree holders infuse four times the amount of money into the local economy as someone with a high school diploma.

Also, there can be an immediate return on investing in our students who are inclined to immediately join the workforce. About 4,600 seniors will graduate from Sonoma County high schools this June - and every June thereafter. About 30 percent of these young adults will leave the County for educational and job opportunities. But around 70 percent will stay here, to attend Santa Rosa Junior College, Sonoma State University, or join the workforce. The young adults who choose to stay should be engaged to join the local workforce in areas specifically related to fire recovery - construction, child care and entry-level government positions. Those who leave for higher educational opportunities outside the county should be supported in their endeavors and encouraged to come home after graduation as professionals.

The truth is that public education in California is pretty average, and education in Sonoma County is no different. How could it be anything but average given that education is severely and chronically underfunded? Governor Jerry Brown congratulates himself for increasing K-12 funding, but that increase only restored us to 2008 funding levels. And at the same time, the legislature increased our financial burdens, causing districts statewide to slash budgets once again. We are all operating on a shoestring.

In Sonoma County, and especially in Santa Rosa City Schools, we cannot afford to wait for the state to do the right thing. Our disaster recovery and effort to build resiliency requires us to take local ownership of our school systems. That includes investment by local government, business, and philanthropy.

We need business to offer substantive internships to students, summer jobs to teachers to keep them sharp in their industry, to help schools make sure their CTE programs are meaningful. We need our local government and industry to make significant economic investments – investments that are shown to have a high return. As individual citizens, we need you to tutor, to mentor, and if you see a measure on the ballot for schools, to vote “Yes.” Our schools need your help - we cannot afford to be average.

Jenni Klose is president of the Santa Rosa City Schools Board of Trustees.