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By Miriam Raftery

Grossmont Union High School District’s superintendent and four of five GUHSD school board trustees agree that Proposition U is critical to repair and replace aging buildings throughout the district—and build a long-awaited new high school for Alpine.

“We can’t modernize the old industrial classrooms abandoned years ago without Proposition U,” GUHSD Superintendent Robert Collins said at an East County Chamber of Commerce meeting. 

The bond measure will provide funds for career tech courses as well as modernization of buildings.  Some campus buildings date back to the 1920s and lack air conditioning. 

“Prop U is an investment in our community,” Collins said.  “Does it raise taxes? Yes, a little bit.  Will it bring people into East County”  Yes, he predicted, noting that parents place high value on modern schools for their children when choosing a place to live.

Voters in the district approved Proposition H in 2004, which allotted $274 million to repair crumbling buildings and provide access for disabled students. At the time, board members acknowledged that the total was not enough to fund all needed improvements.  Now Proposition U aims to complete the job. Prop U, which requires a 55% approval to pass, would allocate $417 million, or about $29.70 per $100,000 of assessed value.  That’s $60 a year for the average home, or slightly over $1 a week.

San Diego Taxpayers Association supports the bond. The current board voted 4 to 1 in favor of putting the bond measure on the ballot.  Board president Jim Kelly voted against the bond, which is also opposed by the San Diego Republican Party. 

Of five candidates running for the GUHSD board, three support Prop U:  Larry Urdahl, Priscilla Schreiber, and Carroll Boone.  The other two, Meg Jedynak and Gary Woods, oppose the measure. 

“If you are against this bond, you are against children,”  Urdahl told East County Magazine.  “Prop U will bring every high school up to current standards that you seek in a modern high school. It will get rid of all the portables. It will complete what Prop H didn’t finish, plus it will enable us to build multi-purpose rooms in all the schools.”  Multi-purpose rooms can be used as cafeterias, theaters or study halls and can also be rented out to communities to use for conferences or events. 

Boone agrees.  “Part of making quality education an investment in our communities is to maintain and repair the facilities,” she said.  “We’ve just got to do it, even though people are feeling that it’s hard economically, it will only get more costly.   We have buildings in disrepair; I’ve heard tales of electrical wires hanging down and parts of ceilings falling down.”

The bond will also provide capacity for career tech classes, which Urdahl describes as upgrades over vocational education.   Students graduating from career tech classes will be guaranteed actual jobs with local companies or hospitals, he said.

Jedynak called the bond measure a “waste of taxpayers money’ at a GUHSD candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters and American Association of university Women.  She also faulted Urdahl and Kelly for adding $65 million for building of an “unnecessary school” – a proposed high school for Alpine.

The bond measure would also allow construction of a new high school in Alpine if district enrollment exceeds 23,000 students.   District enrollment beat projections by 500 students this year “because we went door to door and talked to all the kids who dropped out,” said Superintendent Collins.  “They said `There is nothing there for us.’  We can bring them back.”   Career tech programs are crucial to bring drop-out students back into the schools, he believes. 

Jedynak and Woods oppose an Alpine High School, as well as the bond measure, based on cost.  Kelly has called this the “worst time economically” for a tax increase.

Boone, Schreiber and Urdahl have all voiced support for an Alpine High School. 

Alpine has actually been promised a high school several times and then the funds have been used for something else, Boone observed.  “It’s a matter of fairness, and we do need a new high school. Granite Hills is overcrowded and a lot of students are coming down from alpine to go that school. It just makes sense to have them go to Alpine.”

“I am absolutely committed to fight for Alpine High School if this bond passes,” said Schreiber.

Urdahl, an Alpine resident,  said inflation raised costs for other projects, preventing funds from being used for a new high school in Alpine.

Grossmont High School, open since 1922, is one of several aging campuses in the district in need of upgrades, proponents of Proposition U argue.

He expressed concerns over safety of students commuting from Alpine to other areas on Interstate 8.  “We’ve already lost one student in the past year,” he said.  “Somebody came across the freeway…a football player was killed who was going to San Miguel.”  A year earlier, another student’s death in a traffic accident led to the proposed Zach’s Law, which would if approved would require schools go back to teaching driver training. Urdahl also noted that with rising gas prices, more students in Alpine are taking the bus—and missing out on after school activities.

He predicts enrollment will increase, not decline, due in part to an influx in population including Chaldean Christians from Iraq when the war ends.  “Our goal now is by 2010 we will have purchased land and had EIRs and grading done,” he said, adding that the new high school could be open by 2012 or 2013.

“If the current makeup of the board remains the same and the bond passes, the timetable I gave you is very real,” he pledged.  “The school in Alpine is part of the Superintendent’s vision.” But he added, “If there is a change this election, then the incoming board to vote to remove a high school altogether.”

Miriam Raftery is a national award-winning writer and graduate of the GUHSD district.  Both of her children also graduated from GUHSD schools.