School
Board Votes for Samohi, Edison
Funding |
By Anita Varghese
Staff Writer
October 19 -- More than
two hours of testimony from more than
60 teachers, parents and students
was enough to convince the School
Board on Thursday to approve $81.5
million in Measure BB funds for the
district’s most dilapidated
schools -- Santa Monica High School
and Edison Language Academy.
With $149 million in funding available for Measure
BB Phase I projects, Samohi will receive at least
$57 million and Edison at least $24.5 million.
The remaining funds will be awarded to Malibu
High School ($13.5 million), Olympic High School
($6 million) and all schools that need technology,
health and safety upgrades ($10 million).
Thirty-eight million has been left untouched
to be allocated later. This allocation may be
used for projects at Samohi and Edison if those
schools need more funds, but target spending is
for schools that had its funding put on hold.
“I know that every campus has needs, and
some of those needs are very important,”
said School Board member Jose Escarce. “But
I still think that if people are objective, open-minded,
have toured the campuses and ranked the campuses,
they would find the starkest needs are at Edison
and Santa Monica High School.”
Santa Monica education activists were previously
dismayed when district staff recommended that
Samohi get $38.4 million and Malibu High School
get $27.5 million, which divided into $11,650
per Santa Monica student and $21,000 per Malibu
student.
Gleam Davis, co-chair of the Measure BB Advisory
Committee, developed the alternative funding scenario
that was approved by her committee on Monday and
the School Board in response to a five-page letter
by the Coalition for an Excellent Samohi Campus.
Samohi has three times more students than Malibu
High School and a much older campus with unattractive
hardscaping, unsafe athletic fields and courts,
mold inside and outside of buildings, poor ventilation
systems and an unsanitary ratio of 29 bathrooms
to 3,000 students, said coalition members.
“The goal of passing Measure BB was to
bring all of our schools up to A plus standards,
but the problem, challenge or task confronting
us is how to allocate money,” Davis said.
“When we talk about comparability, it is
going take a lot of money to get F facilities
up to standards.
“In schools like Edison, people say that
if the termites stop holding hands, the buildings
would fall down,” Davis said.
Some parents and teachers at Malibu High School
believe the facilities master plan and public
input processes have been “hijacked”
by the Coalition’s “last minute pleas”
and the School Board should not play with funding
scenarios for Malibu schools.
Public hearings and school site meetings were held throughout this
year with project lists presented to the School Board in July, August
and September.
Escarce and district officials said the funding
scenarios and project lists presented throughout
the process were based on much thought, with critical
needs being identified by teachers and staff at
each school.
“Everybody knows how long the Measure BB
Advisory Committee has been working
weekly throughout the summer and how
much time, energy, blood, sweat and
tears my own staff has put into bringing
forth a recommendation,” said
Superintendent Diane Talarico. The School Board did not approve a specific set
of projects for Samohi or Edison and
directed the district’s administration
to develop recommendations based on
ideas and concerns often repeated
during Thursday’s discussion.
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