12-18-06 Even with the abysmal and dismal performance of the high school, the school board decided to go for a fourth bond issue.
A significant amount of the additional money date "saved" by extending the debt for 10 years without voter approval, even though there Is No Free Lunch, is going to be used to hire companies to sell the community on a bond issue. So much for their promises to use this money for the benefit of the kids' education.
The bond is programmed to be about $30 million, with an initial $30 tax per $100,000 assessed valuation which can rise over the years.
There is no information on what they intend to build.
They intend to retain bond counsel in a semi secret special meeting on Monday 12-18-06 without any opportunity for the public to make comment.
During the election, all of the candidates talked about fixing the problems at the school before they would waste resources on a new bond issue. As of now, nothing has been done to fix any problems but they want us to trust them with $30 million after they've squandered $10 million on the existing high school.
Some of the problems are as follows:
1. Failure to get enough students to even take the Star exam so that the school would have a score for last year.
2. Failed to get the schools approved by the Department of State Architect, as required by law.
3. Failure to build the required number of restrooms for the High School.
4. Failure to get the gym opened, forcing the kids to lose all their indoor sports and a facility to shelter the kids during bad weather. Of course, other organizations are allowed to use the gym but our high school students are not.
5. Having the shortest High School academic instructional period of any high school in the Santa Clarita or Antelope Valleys.
6. The High School has only been provisionally accredited and the recommendations of the Accreditation Committee to develop a library and other facilities to meet the requirements have been ignored.
7. The district improperly closed the Acton school and overcrowded Meadowlark and High Desert and bussed Acton kids to Agua Dulce.
8. According to the U.S. Census, over half the students in the district did not attend the school district, and they are either home schooled or privately schooled. This shows incredible rejection of the school district.
9. The useless, too small high school site, which is mostly floodplain, needs to be expanded for a high school. The fact that Bank of America was willing to donate the entire hundred plus acre site to the school was turned down by the Duzick school board.
10. Lastly, they showed stupidity of thinking when the school board wrote a letter telling LA County that they didn't want a library located adjacent to the high school because of their concern of vandalism. So instead, the library will be located miles from high school and totally useless for the kids.
11. Class size reduction was eliminated for the kindergarten and 3rd grade to save money for the teachers raises.
These are just 11 high points of why we can't trust the school board with $30 much less $30 million. To establish support in the community, they're going to have to do few positive things before asking for one red cent.
1. Get the test scores of the high school up.
2. Get all the buildings approved by the state agencies as required by law.
3. Get the gym opened for use by our kids..
4. Increase the academic education time so our class periods are equal the longest in the area.
5. Acquire the adjacent land to build a decent high school.
6. Do a small bond or assessment district to build a small project such as a bathroom, administrative building or library.
When they do these few positive steps they could come to the community and ask for a bond to build a high school.
But until they do a few small positive steps, my response is Hell no to any large bond.