By LESTER CHANG
Sunnyvale residents last night approved Measure A, a $34 million bond to repair Sunnyvale Elementary School District buildings and replace obsolete equipment.
The measure gives educators the muscle to make long sought-after improvements and to better prepare their students for the 21st century, school officials said.
The bond will pay for physical improvements at seven elementary and two middle schools. This includes new roofs, paint, carpet, electrical wiring and heating systems.
The measure passed by a vote of 6,070 to 1,084, giving supporters 84.8 percent of the vote. By law, a 66.67 percent "yes" vote was required for passage. There were 33,973 residents eligible to vote.
Passage of Measure A comes at a time when survey polls by education groups suggest Californians strongly believe in improving education and when voters statewide recently approved Proposition 203. The state bond measure set aside $3 billion for the construction of schools and other projects, including expanding the child development center and learning center at De Anza College.
"This is terrific. Hundreds of people put in thousands of hours to get this thing passed," Lilian Kilian, president of the SESD board, said of Measure A. "We have done the best we can for the kids of Sunnyvale."
The measure had been endorsed by the Sunnyvale City Council, the chamber of commerce and the school board.
Kilian also serves as co-chairwoman of the Friends of Sunnyvale Schools, a citizens group that helped to put the measure on the June 4 election ballot.
The Friends in January mounted an ambitious and high-energy educational program to help push the measure through. For nearly five months, the group of 150 volunteers has called residents by phone and talked with them at their homes to urge them to vote on the measure.
With the passage of the measure, construction bids will be let out and work could start as early as summer, Kilian said.
Most of the construction work will be done over the next 10 years.
The funds will be generally used to construct or renovate libraries and classrooms; renovate existing classrooms and the school buildings; repair or replace leaky roofs, inadequate plumbing, heating and ventilation systems; and modernize electrical systems for computer use.
The improvements will be needed to accommodate future growth in the district.
The district now has 5,900 students. But with more families moving into the area, partly due to the availability of affordable housing, the district anticipates an enrollment of 7,000 students within the next 10 years.
Sunnyvale Middle School, with an estimated $5.6 million in needed repairs, stands to benefit the most from the passage of Measure A.
Repair work includes the replacement of a 20-year-old roof, expansion of a library, replacement of asbestos tiles, the installation of carpeting and the renovation of administrative offices.
A major facelift also is due for the district's oldest facility, Jarvis E. Bishop Elementary School, which was built in the 1940s.
Funds would be used at Bishop for the installation of new wiring, removal of asbestos tiles in classrooms, the installation of carpeting and lighting to meet safety standards, painting, and the installation of voice-video-data wiring to all classrooms.
Funds also are slated for the construction of new classrooms. The school now uses six temporary classrooms.
The school district pushed for the passage of Measure A because it didn't qualify for any funding under Proposition 203, district officials said.
The district's school buildings are in poor shape, but are still in better condition than those in poorer and larger urban school districts that qualified for the state bond funds, officials said.
The Sunnyvale school district also didn't apply for any of the state bond funds because, if it had qualified for any, it would have had to deal with state spending restrictions, officials said.
The district hasn't been able to keep up with maintaining its buildings because of budget cuts of more than $8 million in state funds in the past decade, Kilian said.
To make ends meet for maintenance program, the district has diverted some funds away from the school programs and projects.
Passage of Measure A helps ease that problem, officials said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 5, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.