VoteNoBonds.com

In July, five Republican officials urged the Board of Education to propose an affordable school bond referendum focused on the most critical construction need—new schools and new seat additions. In our recommendation, we mentioned that, because of poor prioritization in the recent past, suburban overcrowding has been insufficiently addressed while “serviceable schools [in the urban core] were razed and replaced only to be half-filled.” We cited eight examples and observed that reconstructed First Ward Elementary “has 49 classrooms for 639 students—13 students per room.”

The School Board ignored our recommendation and sent a whopping $510 million request to the Board of County Commissioners. There, the Democrat majority whittled it—by cutting funds for new school sites! We have urged voters to defeat this still-bloated, misprioritized school bond and then ride herd on the Commissioners to accelerate construction of new seats with COP’s, STARTING THIS FALL.

Two weeks ago, on behalf of a well-financed pro-bond campaign, school board member and Chamber of Commerce official Kit Cramer labeled a “myth” our report of half-full, newly rebuilt schools. She claimed utilization rates of 89% or more for the eight schools we cited, except for two in the mid-60s and one that is a foreign language immersion program in transition. A number of recently replaced schools, Ms. Cramer claimed, are at more than 100% capacity

Well, Ms. Cramer, you didn’t say where you got your numbers, but we’ll tell you where we get ours. From CMS and your bond campaign web site.

The table below sets forth 2004-05 utilization rates of every one of the replaced schools cited in your memo. (The schools in bold are the ones we mentioned in our paper.) The figures are calculated from the CMS 2004-05 20th-day enrollment list and school capacities of reconstructed schools published by the bond campaign: See “ Bond Projects 1996-2005,” www.voteyesforbonds.com/SummaryBondFundYears.pdf .

Now, compare these new elementary schools, eight of which are approximately half-full, with 29 others, mostly suburban, where permanent space per student is as little as one-fourth that in schools CMS has replaced. For example, Steele Creek has 60 square feet of permanent space per student, compared with 270 square feet per student at Ashley Park—almost five time less:

So, as we stated, eight elementary schools replaced at a cost of over $90 million are approximately half-full, not one replaced school is full, and 29 schools that have not been augmented are from one-and-a-half to four-and-a-half times as crowded as those schools CMS decided to replace.

As for Ms. Cramer’s myth-busting, we hope she will explain how Lincoln Heights Elementary, for example, is at 100% of capacity with 471 students in a spanking new building built for 800. We suspect that she would have to reveal that her utilization statistics for replaced urban core schools are built on changed “capacity.” Not that any of the school buildings constructed in the urban core are any smaller or different than set forth in the “Project Scope” column of that table on voteyesforbonds.com. Rather, CMS and the Chamber simply told us one thing when they asked approval to spend the money; they now tell us another to hide that the money was spent foolishly.

Is it any wonder that there is a crisis of confidence in the stewardship of our tax dollars and public schools? It’s time for a new direction. No more poorly prioritized, wasteful spending. Vote NO on the school bond issue, and the County Commission can begin focused funding of the real school construction priorities THIS FALL.

Dan Bishop, BOCC District 5

Larry Gauvreau, BOE District 1

Bill James, BOCC District 6

Kaye McGarry, BOE At-Large

Jim Puckett, BOCC District 1

Ellen Loflin, BOE Candidate District 5

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 24th, 2005 at 4:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.