Schools to serve more families
Underlying a San Francisco school bond measure is a rarely heard prediction. Families here aren’t fleeing a costly and unfriendly place, but are planning to stay and send more kids to public schools — by the thousands.
Proposition A is a hefty 20-year spending plan totaling $744 million that builds on three earlier bond measures stretching back a decade, and may lead to a fourth one in several years. Along with seismic upgrades and tech-oriented updates in 40 locations, it includes $100 million as a down payment on a new Civic Center high school for the arts.
This shopping list is also built on steadily growing student numbers, a trend few believed would ever happen.
After the district’s population fell to about 55,000 students in 2006, school officials noticed that the drop was bottoming out, and now the number is rising. Their best guess is between 65,000 and 71,000 students in a decade.
The city’s surging economy and the excitement of urban living are factors keeping families here. So are tens of thousands of housing units being built in Hunters Point, Parkmerced and on Treasure Island.
These reasons are pushing educators to build schools — a rarity in a city that once sold them off — and rehab the aging ones already showing signs of overcrowding. Also in the bond plan will be improved kitchens, green schoolyards, and the removal of trailer classrooms. The top attraction may be a $300 million plan for an arts school where the district’s offices are housed at 135 Van Ness Ave. The plan calls for lining up $200 million from state and private sources before the bond money is spent.
The measure won’t be cheap. It will add to property taxes for a decade before costs of prior bonds are paid down. The higher bill goes against the general pattern of other nonschool bond packages that don’t raise property taxes.
Prop. A will add $10 per $100,000 of assessed value to a property tax bill, according to the city controller. The bond measure needs to be approved by 55 percent of the city’s voters. San Francisco’s growing needs oblige a forwardlooking bond measure. Vote yes on Prop. A.