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Council Watch
Diquisto urges SJUSD to fund new campus for Broadway
Supe says bond measure plan not feasible at this time
By Jessica Lyons
Councilman John Diquisto has recently joined the ranks of state Sen. Byron Sher, Assemblyman Jim Cunneen and several dozen Robertsville area neighbors in urging the San Jose Unified School District to find a new home for Broadway High.
In a letter to superintendent Linda Murray, Diquisto says Broadway deserves its own campus, and urges district officials to consider a bond measure to fund a new campus for San Jose's continuation high school.
"Broadway recently became known for quality programs, such as the Robotics program that recently won praise both nationwide and from the local media," Diquisto says in his letter to Murray. "Programs that hold such potential to positively influence our young citizens deserve the attention and funding our school district can provide. By providing Broadway with its own campus, you are making an investment in not only these quality programs, but in the students they seek to educate."
At press time, Murray had not written a formal response, but she had spoken to the councilman about his letter.
"I explained to him that if Mr. Diquisto had some suggestions for us as far as an alternate location for Broadway, I would be happy to hear them," she said.
A separate campus for Broadway has yet to be found.
The Board of Education is expected to give the final go-ahead at its Nov. 4 meeting to moving Broadway High onto the John Muir Middle School campus.
Moving the continuation school onto the John Muir campus, says Diquisto's policy aide, Chris Hemingway, will send the wrong message to the 300 students attending Broadway.
"These are kids that deserve the pride of knowing they have their own campus instead of sharing a baseball field with a middle school," Hemingway said. "The problem is that this is a school district issue, it's not a city issue, and there's not a lot we can do."
In his letter to Murray, Diquisto suggests a bond measure as a means to fund a separate campus for Broadway.
Given the district's tight timeline--it must build a new facility for the continuation high school, move Broadway students onto their new campus, rebuild the old Broadway site to house the district's two-way Spanish immersion program and build a new River Glen Elementary neighborhood school--a bond measure is not a feasible plan, Murray says.
"There's an immediate need to house our students and we have to move forward with a plan that can be accommodated within the next several months," she said. "A bond program would have to go to the voters at large, it would be a very expensive process, and it would take a very long time when we have an immediate need for a school site--it's really not an option for us."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
