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In 1997 the Acton – Agua Dulce School District consisted of three schools: two elementary and one combined junior/senior high school. All schools were at or over designed capacity with a total district-wide enrollment of 2,148 students. The district was already in a period of declining enrollment. A professional cohort based enrollment study was commissioned and projected district enrollment over the next five years. This study predicted that enrollments would continue to decline from the 2,148 students in 1997-98 to 1,925 students in 2002-3.
This study admitted that the high school portion of the study would be inaccurate because of insufficient historical data (remember this is only 4 years after unification) and therefore underestimated the 2002-3 high school enrollment estimate by 100 students. The K-8 estimates were extremely accurate though and estimated that 1,476 students would enroll in 2002-3. The real California Basic Educational Data System (CBEDS) number was 1,529, which is a difference of 3.5% and is a very close estimate of reality (see Appendix 1).
What was the district’s reaction to this declining enrollment report? They decided to complete Meadowlark as an elementary school and within a year they authorized construction of a temporary high school at the Red Rover site. To accomplish these two tasks 4.5 million dollars worth of Certificates of Participation (COP) were floated (without voter approval) costing the district $410,000 each year to repay. Now in 2004 our district owns five school sites and the repayment of this COP debt over 20 to 25 years has had a major fiscal impact during this period of declining enrollment.
Due to this forecasted enrollment decline, our district can no longer operate five school sites efficiently, so the school with the second largest number of permanent classrooms, the Acton site, is being closed and 9 of it modulars are being moved at an unknown cost to mitigate the overcrowding. Mistakes made in the past have manifested themselves as problems of the present. It is our duty not to make the mistakes today that will negatively fiscally impact our district in the future.
There are many issues that must be considered in finding an appropriate use for the Acton School. This Acton site is believed to be zoned A1-1, which could severely impact the potential uses for this site to a nexus of uses that are related to its current educational usage. The site's parking facilities limit even the uses in this area. It has been proposed to use the paved playground area for additional parking. Even this may not add enough parking for some uses. The most logical access to this area is via Syracuse, which is a narrow street whose easement narrows to 30 feet in width, so this may not be a viable access route to the new parking area. Using the play area for parking will trigger a CEQA study.
Whatever uses are determined for this site should take into consideration the potential expenses to lease the site out. Of particular concern here are any possible one-time expenses needed to accommodate a tenant. The district is cash strapped and cannot afford any expensive upgrade costs. On an ongoing basis the potential lease revenue needs to be evaluated in relation to the potential lease expenses, so that this site can produce a positive cash flow to the district. Finally, the cost of restoring this site for future use as a school needs to be taken into account. If a proposed use requires substantial modifications that will require significant restoration costs to be used as a district school again, then maybe an alternate lessee should be chosen.
Eventually the district would like to build a permanent high school. The current plans are to build these facilities in the exact location where the temporary high school buildings are placed; therefore this entails moving these relocatable buildings prior to commencement of construction. These plans currently involve moving these portables to the high schools football field, an area without pads or utility hookups, thus requiring almost one million dollars in extra expense.
An alternative to this temporary high school move is to move the high school to the Acton campus while the permanent construction is occurring, thus saving almost one million dollars. For this reason any long-term lease of the Acton School should not be contemplated, unless the adjacent land to Vasquez is purchased for the location of the permanent buildings. This will enable the temporary high school campus to remain where it is until the permanent buildings are complete.
Any decisions made should be based on sound data. The enrollment projection data in the Surplus Property report is obviously not based on an accurate cohort study. Vasquez High will not have 605 students enrolled next year. This estimate is too high given that traditionally approximately 50 8th graders do not chose to attend Vasquez in 9th grade. Nor do the High Desert Middle School figures look accurate; retention in all lower grades is quite good. Given the inaccuracies in next year’s enrollment projections, the subsequent four-year project proves to be suspect, lacks backing documentation and does not break down the projections based on grade level. Accurate five-year enrollment projections were produced in 1997, yet bad decisions made. Inaccurate five-year projections in 2004 can only lead to very bad decisions being made. No decisions should be made until the professional five-year enrollment study, which is currently in progress, is complete and the committee has had time to review the results.
Conclusion
The Surplus Committee should take their work seriously and thoroughly discuss the issues and the ramifications of those issues. Decisions made now will affect decision in the future.
Appendix item 1
to be posed check back later
Notice how these 1997 enrollment estimates came within about 50 students of what was actually reported for the 2002-3 academic year.
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