MICHAEL J. WILLIAMS

Staff Writer

For the fourth time in 14 years, the Vista Unified School District is asking voters to embrace a bond issue that would finance school construction.

Due to the failure of the previous measures, the need to pass Proposition O on March 5 is more acute than ever, district officials and community activists contend. Failure means the district will continue to herd students into cramped, aging schools, many of which operate year-round on staggered schedules designed to cope with overcrowding. Opponents of the proposition say the district can come up with the money without taxing property owners if it needs to build schools.

We're now maxed out, school board Trustee Valerie Wade said in an interview this week. There are no other options. I feel we're on the cusp here. If we don't get this bond passed, the quality of education is going to decline no matter how solid our teachers are.

If the proposition is approved by 55 percent of the voters, it would supply $140 million in bond revenues. That money would be combined with state revenues allotted for public-school construction to complete an estimated $250 million in projects.

The district operates 24 schools for 25,000 elementary and secondary students, about one third of whom reside in Oceanside and with a small percentage of pupils from Carlsbad.

Those projects include the construction of four kindergarten-through-fifth-grade schools, two kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools, a middle school serving grades six through eight, two four-year magnet high-school programs sharing one campus, and a permanent campus for the Guajome Park Academy charter school serving grades six through 12.

The bond revenues would enable the district to refurbish 10 of its oldest campuses: Bobier, Crestview,Grapevine, Monte Vista, Casita and California Avenue elementary schools, the Vista Academy of Visual and Performing Arts, Lincoln and Washington middle schools, Vista High School and California Avenue School.

Also, the bond would provide $400,000 for improvements at each of the district's two four-year high schools, $200,000 for each of the district's four middle schools and $100,000 for each for the district's 13 elementary schools and several other special campuses.

The bonds would result in a maximum annual levy of $60 per $100,000 in assessed property value, and an average of $51.65 per $100,000 in assessed value over the 35-year repayment period. The average homeowner in the area would pay a maximum of $104 per year based on an average single-family home value of $174,453 in Vista.

Opponents: Bond unwarranted

Widespread support has swelled from city officials, community leaders and business representatives in Vista and Oceanside. The Libertarian Party's San Diego chapter opposes the measure as it has with Vista's past bond measures and all other bond measures in the county on the March 5 ballot. The Libertarians filed a stock sample ballot argument against all five of the March 5 school bond measures stating that schools have ample money and could build additional facilities by reallocating the dollars they already have.

Richard Blake Sr., an attorney and Vista resident, signed the voter's pamphlet rebuttal argument opposing the measure. He agrees with the Libertarian argument that the district could accomplish the projects it needs by better managing its existing finances.

The district has been mismanaged for so many years and has thrown money away on so many projects that now the can is empty, Blake said. To me, there's been a gross mismanagement of the funds that are available. I think there is plenty of money there. They just don't use it properly. To vote in this bond measure is like pouring money down a rat hole.

Blake declined to specify where and when mismanagement has occurred. District administrators vigorously dispute assertions that the district's finances have been mismanaged. They point to their record in maintaining the schools at functional levels despite packing in students and classes far beyond the capacities for which they were built. Moreover, bond supporters say, the district's schools continue to provide a good education, as evidenced by the district's overall above-average scores on standardized academic achievement tests.

I think our teachers have worked miracles under the circumstances, said Jamie Baumann, 15-year veteran district administrator who is now serving as Vista High School's interim principal. Everything has been focused on meeting the academic needs, but when you've got half your parking lot occupied by relocatable classrooms, it gets complicated. It's a credit to the people in the school district that the community as a whole hasn't felt the overcrowding.

District leaders point to the San Diego County Taxpayers' Association's endorsement of the March 5 measure. The association opposed the district's last bond measure in 1999, a position based primarily on its concerns over the district's ability to provide ongoing maintenance for facilities built with the bond revenues. A review of the district's management performance in the past and its maintenance plans for the future led the association to support this year's bond and to sign the sample ballot argument in favor of the measure.

Facility needs unquestioned

Scott Barnett, who was the association's executive director when it announced its position in December, said the need to pass the bond measure is unquestioned.

Our first criteria is that the bond is needed, and clearly it is, in our view, said Barnett, who has since left the organization for another job.

Overcrowding has been an issue since the district's failed 1988 and 1989 bond measures, and the situation only worsened through the 1990s as enrollment escalated annually. In the last two years enrollment has leveled off, but it remains at about 25,000 students attending schools built for 16,000 students.

We're 10 years in the hole, Wade said. We're playing catch-up to a 10-year deficit.

Baumann believes the district's failure to relieve overcrowding and upgrade facilities has contributed to the declining enrollment.

Ten years ago, people picked Vista for their homes to be in the Vista Unified School District, Baumann said. I think it's gotten out there that we're really crowded and other districts are more attractive.

Each of the district's 19 regular schools serves more students than its capacity. Bobier, built in 1961, is more than 400 students over its capacity of 600 students, while Casita, which opened in 1971 for 660 students, is 394 students over capacity. Washington Middle School is 540 students over its 1,000-student capacity when it opened in 1962, while Roosevelt Middle School is 350 students over its capacity of 1,200 students when it opened in 1989.

Both Vista High School, which was built in 1972, and Rancho Buena Vista High School, which opened in 1987, are over their original capacities of 1,800 students each. The latest enrollment figures show Vista High has 3,366 students, while Rancho Buena Vista has 3,021.

Survival strategies

To cope with the inadequate space at the elementary and middle schools, the district for years has juggled schedules. Elementary and middle school students have been divided into three sections, each following different calendars, which are staggered throughout the year to maximize classroom space. The year-round schedule has increased the district's staffing and bus transportation costs, while causing more wear and tear on school facilities, district administrators say.

Also, it has cut into the instructional time received by students. Under the year-round, multi-track schedules, which are differentiated as the green, blue and orange tracks, students attend school a maximum 163 days a year, 17 days shorter than a regular school calendar. The district would be able to return to a 180-day schedule districtwide if the bond measure passes, officials say.

The multi-track system has been a 10-year detour, Board President Letha McWey said in a recent interview. We're not one community; we're three communities ---- the green, blue and orange communities. It's very disjointed. It just makes it so much harder on the staff. I know that it impacts the learning of kids.

The high schools have avoided multi-track scheduling through the use of portable buildings, which account for half of the classrooms at each campus. Reliance on the portables adds to the schools' facility, maintenance and energy costs, while squeezing the space available for extra-curricular activities, including sports, said Vista High Assistant Principal Tony Trousset.

Several Vista High teams are bussed to off-campus fields, which increases the district's transportation costs, Trousset said. Also, the campus has inadequate parking and insufficient restrooms, he said.

We've been able to make it work, but you can't keep putting the demand on the (facilities) or the staff much longer, said Trousset, who has worked for the district 31 years, 21 years at the high school.

Student opportunities lessened

Rancho Buena Vista High, while a much newer school, has been battling similar problems, Principal Rich Alderson said. Alderson said the overcrowding on campus reduces the amount of attention that individual pupils receive from teachers and other staff members.

If you have a school of 1,800 kids, you have a varsity basketball team with 12 kids on it, and if you have a school of 3,000 kids you have a varsity basketball team with 12 kids on it, Alderson said. I see overcrowding as a deterrent for some kids to be involved in activities. Kids aren't as able to make as solid of a connection with adults on campus as we would like. I am always afraid that we have kids out there who are uninvolved, unnoticed and unappreciated.

The only realistic solution to the problems is the bond measure, said Don Petros, chairman of the campaign committee Classrooms for Kids 2002.

The school bond is the only means possible to build schools and anyone who believes schools can be built in any other way absolutely doesn't understand the system and doesn't understand how to build schools, said Petros, a Vista resident with two children in district schools. It's so obvious and apparent how in the past we have neglected our obligation and how we have neglected our school facilities.

Sixty-percent of our kids are going to school in trailers. When you walk in they shake and wobble. When we went to school, we went to real schools made of real brick and mortar with real gyms, real playgrounds and real lockers that you didn't have to share with two or three other people. Our kids should receive no less.

Contact staff writer Michael J. Williams at (760) 631-6621 or mwilliams@nctimes.com.