Endorsement: School district seeks $120 million bond

Measure E – a warm, safe and dry path to the 21st century classroom|

Warm, safe and dry.

A simple google search for those words will reveal one of two things: either lyrics to a Patterson Hood song called “Screwtopia,” or a marketing slogan used multiple times over the last few years to promote various school tax measures across the U.S.

Despite what ardent tax watchdogs would have you believe, it’s the latter search result that concerns the Sonoma Valley Unified School District’s proposed $120 million bond measure on the Nov. 8 ballot.

With “warm, safe and dry” as the district’s expressed promise of infrastructure upgrades – plumbing, roofs, other repairs – Measure E would cost Valley homeowners $42.50 per $100,000 of assessed value (as opposed to market value). Someone with a residence with an assessed value of $200,000, for instance, would pay $85 a year. Someone with an assessed value at $1 million, would pay $425, etc. At $120 million, the bond would ultimately cost $242 million to pay off. The measure needs 55 percent approval to pass.

The district passed smaller bond measures in 1994, 1997 and again in 2010. The 2010 Measure H was for $40 million and a large chunk of that went to the solar power system, which district officials say is saving the district $500,000 a year. District homeowners are still seeing deductions for Measure H on their tax bills.

School officials say they would use the Measure E funds to upgrade the district’s mid-20th century-designed campuses – visits to which campaign chairwoman Selma Blanusa charitably describes as “a step back in time” – repairing infrastructure and modernization. Other initiatives include purchasing Chromebooks for every district student and updating classroom environments, part of what Sonoma Valley Unified School District Superintendent Louann Carlomagno describes as part of a plan to usher Valley students into the world of 21st century education.

The emphasis on facilities upgrades and classroom technologies is a far cry from the headlines made a year ago when the district released its master plan “wish list” of necessities, which included tantalizing goodies like a performing arts center and all new sports fields. As alluring as those gems may be, district polling showed they weren’t priorities for residents and, thus District officials returned to a far cozier “warm, safe and dry” spending plan for the immediate future.

While there is no organized opposition to Measure E, questions exist about the specifics of what “warm, safe and dry” exactly means. The district on its svusdca.org website lists eight Measure E initiatives, such as “modernize and construct classrooms, restrooms and school facilities” and “improve physical education facilities for student safety.” Such generalities are open to a broad interpretation; we’d love more specifics. (Does safe P.E. facilities mean a new gym or sports arena?) The nearby Novato Unified School District, by comparison, is seeking a $222 million bond measure to address needs much like Sonoma’s – facilities upgrades at 60-year-old schools to equip students with “21st century skills.” Novato’s campaign lists down to the dollar what it expects to spend for everything from exterior painting and playground repairs to “flexible furniture” and Chromebooks – not to mention how much it plans to spend at each individual school. Surely, SVUSD could have offered more detail in its plan.

That being said, SVUSD has shown forward-thinking strategies with bonds in the past. The solar energy system funded through Measure H, for instance, is a major financial savings for the district. Other school districts are following suit in the solar arena, where SVUSD has had several years’ head start.

There’s also little debate over whether the districts’ aging schools – some nine decades old – need sprucing up. Most importantly, however, is the need for Valley schools to keep pace with the rapidly advancing education paradigms of the digital age. That doesn’t merely mean laptops for the kids – though that’s part of it. It’s about classroom flow and learning zones. It’s about maker labs and technology integration. Such terms as STEM, STEAM, executive function, blended learning and inquiry-based approach didn’t exist 20 years ago. Today, they’re the basis for preparing kids for jobs that will only exist 20 years from now.

Never mind the “3 R’s,” today’s it’s all about the 4 C’s – and if you’re unfamiliar with those (critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity, in case you’re wondering), that may be reason enough to support the bond. At the very least, it’s a necessary step toward equipping Valley kids with the skills and capacities to thrive as 21st century adults – perhaps even to the point where they can one day afford to purchase a home in their native Sonoma.

Maybe that’s what warm, safe and dry really means.

We recommend a Yes on Measure E.

– Jason Walsh, editor

– John Burns, publisher

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