The Red Rover site has been a continuous disaster to this district since Dusick and Bandaras chose it over the communities’ objections. Many people in the communities feel it was done by Bandaras and Dusick to shutdown the district and was designed to fail.
The property is simply not big enough, as most of it is in a flood area. What isn't in a flood area is right next to the freeway which violates the educational code guidelines for school locations.
The communities have three times in a row rejected a bond. Some no votes were just no on any bond, but a considerable number of no votes were because of this bad location coupled with a bad design.
It was designed to fail, but wasting money and ignoring the community standards was its most important design flaw.
Now to make matters worse, the board is closing the Acton School. The board is also eliminating two years of class size reductions and busing kids to Agua Dulce so they can squander these savings on moving more portables to the failed Red Rover site.
Of course the idea of just moving the kids (Vasquez moves to the Antelope Woods site and the Acton-Meadowlark schools become a 2 campus K-8 with Agua Dulce as a K-8) to where the classrooms, libraries, multipurpose rooms, lawns, and trees already exist doesn’t satisfy the short sighted friends of Vasquez High.
The $200,000 proposal to move portables will not just waste the money once but it will add another $200,000 in expense over the existing $1.5 million cost that was programmed into the scheduled bonds, which were to be paid through property taxes assessments, to move the modulars to another temporary site while a permanent building is built.
Then the portables have to be moved again for a third time - has anyone ever heard the expression "throwing away good money after bad?"
1. Close the Red Rover site.
2. Return the expensive and redundant portables.
3. Place savings in a special account to be used for building the permanent Vasquez High School.
4. Purchase sufficient land so that the permanent school can be built close to Escondido and playing fields buffering the freeway.
5. The entire site of 145 acres was originally offered to the school as a donation. Instead it was purchased by Dusick’s patron and only 40 acres of the site was traded for Wallace Canyon. Now with 20-20 hindsight it is possible that Mr. Speer would still like to donate the rest of the property he purchased in trade for naming rights? If not, we could purchase it for a reasonable amount compared to the millions of dollars wasted in the modular classroom dance. The entire site could be held to develop as an educational and community site, which includes a library, community center, and playing fields to serve the community for the next hundred years.
6. We need to go forward to build permanent school, but I can guarantee you that no one will ever vote for a Bond to build a school on this inadequate site. Just a quick look at the parcel map of the property shows you how gerrymandered the property lines were to create a minimum value lot. This lot will never be useful as high school.
If this idea goes forward and develops a planned community center and educational project on the entire site and uses the money saved by closing the failed Red Rover site, then getting a tax assessment approved by the voters is possible. Design a quality school totally conforming to our Standards District and you will get the voters to approve it.
But, if the new board and Superintendent continue to waste millions of dollars on a failed, inadequate site, they will never get voter approval.
The district is wrong if it thinks they can get hardship money to build a high school. One has to ignore the facts:
They have failed to purchase the existing modulars for a nominal cost, wasting thousands of dollars per year in rent,
They rented new modulars when they already had enough modulars but left them vacant,
They have no long term plan,
They wasted millions of dollars on a failed high school site.
This doesn't make them a hardship.
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