By KATHERINE PETERSEN
Leaky roofs, run-down portable classrooms, unsafe playground equipment and aging bathroom facilities are common among many schools in the Sunnyvale Elementary School District--a situation the district says it would gladly fix if it had the money to do so.
The SESD Board of Education last month voted unanimously to place a $34 million bond issue on the ballot in a June 4 special election. Money from the bond issue, if approved, could only be used for improving school buildings or constructing new facilities.
The district attempted to secure a $30 million bond in 1992, but the bond measure failed when it received only 57 percent of the required 66.7 percent of the vote to pass.
Board President Linda Kilian said six of the district's nine schools are in desperate need of upgrades. She said some classrooms have only two electrical outlets.
"The bathrooms have not been improved since they were built. I think we can imagine what 35-year-old bathrooms would look like, no matter how much they are cleaned," Kilian said.
Kilian said many of the improvements would allow the schools to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act by adding wheelchair-accessible bathrooms and installing matting in place of wood chips below playground equipment.
"Much of the playground equipment also needs to be redone. It was acceptable 35 years ago, but standards of safety have changed," she said.
Yet some city residents, such as James Lincoln, questioned the district's priorities after it spent $2 million last year to build a new administrative office on Iowa and Pastoria avenues. The 17,000-square-foot building is expected to open in March.
Lincoln said that money could have been used for school improvements.
"If nine of the schools in the district are crumbling to the ground because of lack of maintenance, the administration's priorities strike me as peculiar. Why didn't they put every penny from the sale of the Benner School site into repair?" he asked.
Lincoln said he doesn't know that he will vote against the bond issue, but he would like some explanations. He wanted to know the ratio of administrators to teaches, if the district needed to build expensive new offices.
"I just think the priorities are downright bizarre," he said.
Rachel Hamlin, the district's associate superintendent for human resources and educational services, said that SESD has 17.58 administrators for the 249.4 full-time teachers, a ratio lower than the maximum 22.44 administrators allowed by the California Department of Education.
She added that California has the lowest administrator-to-student ratio in the nation with one administrator for each 2,450 students, compared with the national average of one administrator for every 968 students.
Board President Kilian said the district sold the old office, which was seismically unsafe and inefficient, with the Benner School site for $10 million. She said that $8 million went toward reopening Vargas and San Miguel elementary schools, which had been closed for 10 to 15 years.
"They were completely remodeled and brought up to current codes," she said. The district also remodeled Columbia, changing it from an elementary school to a middle school.
Kilian defended the board's decision to build new offices, saying it chose the least expensive option by building on district-owned land. Other alternatives included buying or leasing a vacant building, purchasing land or renovating a school site.
"Over an 18-year period, building on land we owned came out to be less expensive," Kilian said.
The $2 million spent on office would not have been enough to cover the repairs at the schools in need, Kilian said. The district will provide information and answer question about the bond issue.
"It's not a stealth campaign at all. We want people to know we have the needs. We invite people to visit the schools," she said.
Kilian said the state does not provide enough funding for school repairs. "If it is not done locally, it doesn't happen. And that's what's happened for the last 20 years," she said.
The district receives $125,000 from the state to maintain the 12 sites it owns. Kilian said that that amount of money would pay for re-roofing one school.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, February 28, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.