K-8 School Bond Measure L
According to the Public School Institute of California, of the 10,000 schools and 300,000 classrooms that serve 6 million students in the state, 70 percent are over 25 years old.
They project that more than $117 billion is necessary for school facilities by 2022 and 69 percent of that amount will need to be used for school maintenance and modernization. Porterville is no exception.
Measure L is a K-8 School Improvement Measure that will be on the March ballot. This $33.4 million dollar bond has been proposed to upgrade and repair existing PUSD schools. Its passage would allow PUSD to access $31.5 million in matching state funds. If Measure L doesn’t pass in Porterville, those same state matching funds will go to other districts. The money for Measure L will be generated from a property tax on the assessed value of property in the city of Porterville. The approximate tax is $36 per $100,000 per year which would result in only a $3 a month increase. Properties are often assessed at less than what they are worth.
Passage of this bond will improve the facilities where teachers work every day educating the next generation. Each campus has a sign that specifies the repairs and improvements that are planned at that site.
Having worked at Westfield School for more than 25 years, I have seen firsthand the deterioration that site is experiencing. Principal Heather Bledsaw, worries about student safety as she inspects rusted plumbing, water fountains with broken enamel, leaky roofs, plus damaged floor and ceiling tiles at a school with buildings dating back to 1949. Westfield isn’t alone with these challenges, with almost every school site facing issues related to inadequate facilities.
Teachers support this measure because they genuinely care about the facilities where they work to educate our students. Classrooms on many campuses are more than 30 years old with major repairs long overdue. Bathrooms are so yucky and uninviting students don’t want to enter them much less use them. A prime example is mirrors that don’t even show student faces because the old silver backing has worn off.
In 2016, more than 200 local school bond measures were on the ballot and 94 percent of them passed. Why isn’t this true for Porterville? Our schools need updating and modernizing. It won’t cost the members of the community much. The state matching funds will maximize our local district’s dollars.
District personnel have prioritized the needs and itemized the most crucial improvements after receiving input from various stakeholders including community members, teachers, parents, staff, and students as part of the facility master plan developed over the last year.
Superintendent Dr. Nate Nelson said, “When it comes to local school facility funding per student, PUSD is near the bottom, not only in comparison to California as a whole but many of the surrounding valley towns that share the same demographic makeup and economic challenges we face in Porterville. Because of the way school facility funding is structured, the opposition to local school improvement measures in Porterville means our community loses out on State matching dollars that instead go to benefit students in other communities, both near and far.
“Community tax dollars are flowing out of town and instead being sent to other areas around the State. In essence, for every dollar we fail to raise locally to support school facilities, our students lose out on two dollars that would go to improve their schools.”
Surrounding communities have invested at a much higher level in local school improvement Measures. PUSD is 4th from the bottom on a list of 38 school districts between Bakersfield and Fresno. For example, funding from local measures is at less than $1,600 per student in PUSD while Tulare High Schools are more than $16,000 per student.
According to a UC Berkley Center for Cities+schools study, “Underfunded school buildings will, over time, cause or accentuate health problems among children, undermine teacher performance and student achievement, and have a shortened useful building life. All of which are bad news for California.”
Their study found it’s unlikely school districts can “go it alone” without state support for maintaining and modernizing facilities. Districts serving more low-income students, such as Porterville, spend less on capital outlay and more on maintenance and operations per student than districts serving higher income students. So districts like ours disproportionately use their operating funds to repair facilities. With higher operations costs they have fewer dollars for education programs.
The Center for Cities+schools said this trend for underspending comes at a great cost: “As poor facility conditions disproportionately affect students and educators in lowwealth communities, it undermines the equity priorities of California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).”
Help equalize this situation for our community and students and vote YES on Measure L.