Bound by the bond

No one who took part in the cheers and celebration upon the April 1998 passage of the $48.725 million school bond could have imagined the disturbing turn things would take.

Six years after the passage of Measure A, the Chico Unified School District Board of Trustees is considering not building the school at all, and perhaps even using the bond money for other projects.

We’ll get to the point quickly: If that happens, the CUSD can forget about ever passing another bond in this town.

It’s not that we can’t understand their reasoning. As in many districts across the state, enrollment has plummeted in the CUSD, making the need for a third comprehensive high school less pressing. More importantly, since with each student comes more dollars, the chances are slim that the district could afford to staff and run another school even if it were built.

But the new high school was always the centerpiece of the bond effort.

There was never a whiff of a notion that the bond, described by a trustee at the time as “immediate and critical,” might not result in a new high school. Now come the lawyers, who are advising the CUSD that, thanks to loopholes in the ballot wording, the district can pretty much do whatever it wants, building and improvement-wise, with the money.

The CUSD is engaging in what can only be called revisionist thinking. In 1998, high schools of almost 2,100 students were called overcrowded and intolerable. Now, principals say, they like schools large because they can offer more and diverse courses. In 1998, “portable” buildings were described as sub-par learning environments eating up precious green space. Now, they’re just fine. In 1998, the CUSD was confident its figures predicting 19,010 students within 20 years were on target. Now, district staff is certain it will grow to just 15,282 by then.

Almost as an afterthought, district staff informed trustees last week that within 15 years Chico will need two new elementary schools. This news comes just months after the shuttering of Jay Partridge and Nord elementary schools caused disruption and distress in the community.

Some have suggested that the CUSD not issue the remaining bonds, and/or refund money to Chico taxpayers. We disagree. Keep the money, acknowledging that it will, indeed, lose buying power as the years as inflation and construction costs mount. Save it for a third high school.

However fiscally reasonable diverting the funds might sound, district leaders can’t count on the community understanding why the CUSD is going back on its word. Because that’s what it would be doing, and no amount of slick lawyering can hide that.