Walking the Districts

San Diego County’s public education system is made up of more than 40 separate school districts. They range in size from the giant San Diego Unified—with more than 140,000 students and 180-plus schools—to tiny one-school districts like Spencer Valley near Julian, with a grand total of 33 students.

What follows are snapshot profiles of some of the county’s key school districts and the issues, challenges and opportunities they face.

North County Coastal

Two districts consistently grab the spotlight: Oceanside and Vista.

In Oceanside, maverick superintendent Kenneth Noonan continues to receive high marks for his staunch advocacy of English immersion rather than bilingual education. Presiding over a district of 22,000 students and some of the county’s poorest schools, Noonan and his largely supportive board locked horns with the state education department in the fall of 2000 over his refusal to grant more than a handful of waivers to non-English speakers.

Within a year, test scores had skyrocketed while the dropout rate was down by one-third. Noonan became a national media celebrity, and both The New York Times and U.S. News & World Report praised his strict interpretation of Proposition 227, the state initiative passed by voters in 1998 that requires students to be taught primarily in English.

Ironically, Noonan, who is part Hispanic, initially opposed the measure because he believed it went too far. Now, he thinks differently. “In the 30 years that I supported bilingual education, I didn’t realize I was in the mode that was cheating our kids,” he says. “Our English-speaking kids got 13 years of English-language development, while our kids in bilingual education got roughly half that—and it showed in their achievement levels, their dropout rates and their college entrance rates.”

Noonan notes that when he took over the Oceanside school district in 1997, “It was the lowest-scoring district in San Diego County. That’s not true now—most of our schools are at or above the average.” He credits this uptick with the November 2000 passage of a $125 million bond measure, the first such initiative to be approved by voters in years. “Two previous bond measures had failed,” he says. “That’s what happens when you start seeing results.”

The first project to be funded with bond money was rebuilding Oceanside High, now complete. Upcoming projects include a similar makeover for Oceanside’s other high school, El Camino, and the construction of a third high school, a new middle school and four new elementary schools. “We’re very overcrowded,” Noonan says. “That bond is just a wonderful thing to happen.”

Meanwhile, in Vista, it’s been more than 10 years since the much-publicized takeover of the Vista Unified School District board by the so-called religious right, with its agenda of challenging evolution, bringing back school prayer and limiting sex education. But while two of the fundamentalists were recalled in 1995, conservatism lingers in the district, which serves more than 28,000 students.

Republicans poured thousands of dollars into the November school board race. GOP Assemblyman Mark Wyland, a former educator and school board member, has taken a keen interest in the board, financially backing conservative candidates Jim Gibson and Steve Bradford, who came out in favor of school vouchers and the district’s beleaguered charter school, the Vista Literacy Academy, which the teachers’ union wants to see closed.

As it stands, the board is sharply divided along ideological lines—an inopportune time for a split, given the shaky economy. Last May, the board cut 140 jobs and curtailed busing to address a $9.6 million budget shortfall. Two months earlier, voters passed a $139.8 million bond for school rehabilitation and construction —and school board members must now reach agreement on how, and where, to spend that money first.

North County Inland

The celebrated Poway Unified School District’s top-notch schools are perhaps the single biggest draw to the town of Poway and the surrounding area. Several real-estate agents privately say that the rush has inflated housing prices and spurred development anywhere and everywhere within the district’s bounds.

School board member Penny Ranftle isn’t surprised. “We are the ‘other’ San Diego school district,” she says. “Sixty-five percent of our schools are within the San Diego city limits, and with continued build-out over 99 square miles, we’re looking at another 10,000 students in the next 15 years.”

Poway Unified, led by Harvard-educated superintendent Don Phillips, has 32,000 students and 31 schools. That’s the third-highest student count in the county. For years, Poway schools have racked up high test scores, consistently surpassing the state goal of 800 on the Academic Performance Index.

“There’s no question that people move here for the schools,” Ranftle says. “I moved here for the schools, and that was 17 years ago.”

Why are Poway schools so good? To a large degree, because of the people, observers say. If people move to Poway because of the schools, it follows that they are concerned about their children’s education, and they tend to be very involved.

“We have a huge commitment from parents,” says Ranftle. The local business community, with an eye toward future workers, is also heavily involved, with every school having at least one “adopter”—a business that donates time, money and/or supplies—and some having as many as three.

School board vice president Linda Vanderveen says the board recently hosted “a three-day strategic planning session involving 135 staff members, parents, students and community leaders. It was extremely successful, resulting in identification of key initiatives to drive our two goals. We want all students to master statewide goals and our district goal of literacy in reading, writing and mathematics.”

Poway voters also have approved a $194 million bond issue to refurbish 24 schools, which qualifies them for an additional $64 million in matching state funds. That should quiet grumblings about the discrepancy between schools in newer developments, like Westview, that benefit from steep Mello-Roos fees (assessments tacked on to pay for facilities infrastructure), and older schools like Poway High, which are located in existing neighborhoods with little or no new-home construction.

“Poway High is 40 years old and was built for 2,000 students,” Ranftle says. “At one point, it had 3,300 students. The problem is that the money from homeowners buying those new homes, under state law, can’t be used on older schools, so the bond will certainly help—although it was difficult to make people understand we weren’t pouring money into schools like Westview.”

Going forward, the Poway school board will face a number of challenges, including future growth, spending the bond issue in a timely, efficient manner and dealing with a potential $3 million budget shortfall due to state education cutbacks. But academics remains a top concern.

East County

With the November elections, the Grossmont Union High School District, in the words of one veteran education observer, has “gone Vista.” Ten years after the fundamentalists took over the Vista school board, Christian conservatives have regained a majority on the Grossmont board, which oversees a district with 24,000 students and 11 high schools—two of them center stage for fatal shootings in recent years.

Grossmont is one of the most crowded districts in the county, and the sad condition of its aging and outdated schools is legendary. A $199 million bond measure, which required the approval of two-thirds of voters to pass, went down to defeat in last November’s elections, as did liberal board member Ted Crooks, who was seeking reelection.

Observers fear that Granger Ward, the forward-thinking superintendent of schools, may be out of a job now that the conservatives are back in charge. Winning school board candidates Gary Cass and Jim Kelly are at odds with Ward—an African-American and former chief of the Manhattan school board—over a number of matters, including a larger bond issue and a lower voter threshold to approve such a measure.

A few days before the election, The San Diego Union-Tribune blasted Cass and Kelly for pandering to a “paranoid mindset” by focusing on such “red-herring buzzwords as ‘social engineering’ and ‘homosexual agenda’” instead of “enhancing academics, repairing and refurbishing the crumbling infrastructure and protecting students.” Coral Ridge Ministries and its Center for Reclaiming America, which opposes abortion and homosexuality, financially supported Cass, pastor of a church and operator of a religious school, in his successful campaign.

“At this point, everybody is waiting to see what will happen with this new Christian right majority,” says departing board member Crooks, a former school principal who was supported by the California Teachers Association’s political action committee. “All three [newly elected school board members] go to the same church, and Cass is their pastor.”

Observers expect Tom Page, the former San Diego Gas & Electric chief, to become more visible as the board’s lone voice of moderation, pressing for school repairs and student safety—not to mention tolerance.

South Bay

Growing pains are tough, particularly for the Sweetwater Union High School District. With more and more new tracts being built east of Interstate 805 in the South Bay, there’s plenty of money to improve crowded conditions in schools. But getting things done with that money seems to be another story.

In November 2000, South Bay voters approved a $187 million bond measure to pay for improvements at 21 middle and high schools through a property tax surcharge for 25 years. But more than two years later, the only big-ticket projects that have been completed are new gymnasiums at Mar Vista High in Imperial Beach and Sweetwater High in National City.

Officials with the Sweetwater Union High School District, with nearly 38,000 students, maintain the two gyms—each costing more than $10 million—were put on the fast track at the behest of committees of students, parents, teachers and community members. But that hasn’t silenced critics like Bryan Felber, a graduate of district schools who lost his bid for a seat on the Sweetwater board in last November’s election (in which all three incumbents won).

Felber believes it’s time for an outside audit to determine where, exactly, all the Proposition BB money is going. He accuses trustees of building the gyms as a “monument” to impress the community. “Everyone sees the gyms right away, at basketball games and rallies,” he says, “while the community at large can’t go into classrooms. This way, they can point to the gyms, say, ‘Look at what we’ve done’ and pat themselves on the back.”

Meanwhile, conditions are steadily worsening at South Bay schools. Parents in the community of EastLake say their 10-year-old high school is woefully inadequate for the population explosion occurring in the area. Enrollment exceeds the school’s capacity of 2,400 by more than 1,000, and at the beginning of this school year, students were forced to sit on window ledges because there weren’t enough chairs. Sixteen classroom trailers have since been moved on campus to help alleviate overcrowding.

Similar overcrowded conditions exist at Rancho del Rey Middle School, while teachers at Chula Vista Middle School have drawn picket lines to protest the building of an administration center before a new cafeteria to replace the previous one, which had burned down. There’s also grumbling over the fact that a new high school was built in San Ysidro before one in Otay Mesa that was supposed to be built first. The San Ysidro school opened with just 576 students.

“The number-one question I heard when I was out walking precincts,” Felber says, “is ‘Where are the funds? Why aren’t they building classrooms?’”

Board member Jim Cartmill responds, “We formed community-based committees to determine priorities at each school site. Because of the logistics of moving students during construction and the needs of the schools, Sweetwater and Mar Vista opted to build their gyms first, with classrooms attached. The next phase will include additional classrooms and infrastructure improvements.”

A few days before the November elections, a group of parents filed a formal complaint with the county Grand Jury, asking for an investigation. “There are essentially three separate issues that frame our concerns,” says the letter, a copy of which was provided to San Diego Magazine. “They are misrepresentations as to the duties of the bond oversight committee, improper funding of projects outside the scope of Proposition BB, and the decision-making and approval process.”

Cartmill and other district officials hope critics will be a bit more satisfied this year, when Mar Vista High and Sweetwater High get new science labs, and two new schools—a high school in Otay Ranch and a middle school in EastLake—open in July. They also maintain academics are improving due to their much-ballyhooed Compact for Success, which guarantees admission to San Diego State University and financial aid when needed to South County high schoolers who complete a list of college prerequisites.

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