CARGO! Community Action Research Go!
Sir Francis Drake High School,
San Anselmo, CA

Student Report

Introduction

There you are, sitting in your first period class at Oakland Street Academy in Oakland. You're shivering as you watch your exhalations turn to water vapor. You tap Nick, the kid rubbing his hands together next to you. "Watch this," you say, as you pretend to take a drag from a cigarette and then blow the smoke out. "Damn, it's cold!" replies Nick. "Why don't they fix the heaters? They've been busted for almost three years."

During "parent teacher night" at San Jose Middle School in Novato, the parents and faculty all gathered in the library to discuss the year's curriculum. Midway through termites swarmed in through the cracks in the walls. The thousands of termites filled the room causing many parents and some teachers to leave the building. The remaining parents and teachers spent the rest of the evening swatting termites as they continued "parent teacher night."

Schools all around California are in serious need for funding to improve the facilities, which are old, unsafe and broken down. As a result, students are not able to fully participate in the learning process. The above anecdotes illustrate how facility problems affect the learning environment of schools. Facility problems are just one reason why schools need increased funding. Schools statewide are also overcrowded and unsafe. Because all students deserve a safe and conducive learning environment, funding for schools in California must be increased.

Safety

Schools that do not meet facility safety requirements are not providing an effective learning environment for students. Yet, according to a memorandum in support of Proposition 1A, more than 60 percent of our K-12 schools are more than 30 years old and many don't meet today's structural and earthquake safety standards.1

Leaky roofs, faulty heaters, dry rot, old piping, and poor lighting are common problems that plague public schools throughout California. " I don't want my brothers and sisters to go through the same stuff I did," said student Sergio Rodriguez of Oakland's Skyline High School, as he marched with more than 2,000 other students from around Bay Area. "The roofs are falling down, there are leaks everywhere. This is not an environment for learning. We should not put our students through this," said Rodriguez.2

Assistant Principal Betty Jordan of Drake High School in Marin County estimates 15 to 20 million dollars are needed to bring the school up to safety code, an estimate which does not include the addition of parking spaces, repairs to all campus fields, and bathroom renovations to make them handicapped accessible. These improvements are labeled low priority to the Tamalpais Union High School District, an affluent district with much parent support as well as sponsorship from local businesses. Schools in less affluent communities are in much more of a crisis. Castlemont High School students in East Oakland finally returned to two main buildings after four years in portables during a construction project. Much of the school was closed unexpectedly in September 1994 after a seismic study found it unsafe. But for many seniors the transition is too late. "In biology, we never got to dissect anything and we didn't really have experiments in chemistry," Theron Hobbs, 16, a senior at Castlemont said. "I worry it's going to hurt me when I go to college because the other students will have had those things and they will be new to me."3

Overcrowding

In addition to safety hazards, overcrowding of classrooms and increased enrollment are hindering the learning environment in our schools. California classrooms are already the most overcrowded in the nation, with another one million students expected enroll in public schools in the next ten years.4

The State of California needs 22 thousand new classrooms to meet the current student population, not to mention the approximate 100 thousand new students entering the public school system each year.5 The population of California has surged in recent years. In 1988 the State surpassed a record of 4.5 million students set by the Baby Boom in 1970. The State of California expects six million students by the year 2001, making classrooms even more overcrowded.3

Teachers are also affected by overcrowding. 43 percent of teachers at Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo have to share classrooms. Studies have shown that children in overcrowded classrooms cannot learn basic skills such as reading as well as children in small classes.1

Since students in large classes lack quality time with teachers, their academic skills suffer. Since the fall of 1996, the State has been urging schools to lower class sizes. Schools have been required to add more than 18 thousand classrooms, mostly filling playgrounds with portables.3

Although the portables help to lower class size, they are only a temporary solution to the problem of overcrowding. The lack of funding of California school facilities is not helping solve the overcrowding of our classrooms and student learning is directly affected.

Funding

Current funding sources are not generating enough funding to solve California school facility problems. California has traditionally provided school funding through local and state bonds, a small contribution from the Federal government, state property tax, income tax and sales tax. Out of the fifty States in America, California is ranked thirty-first in federal education dollars spent with $347.85 per student per year, which is the least of the six most populated States.6

Proposition 1A, a statewide bond passed in November 1998, will provide $9.2 billion for school facilities. The funds will be used for reducing class size, repairing old classrooms, building new classrooms, wiring for technology and contributing to making schools earthquake safe.5 The bond helps schools, but in order to receive funds from Proposition 1A, the communities have to provide 50 percent of the funding for building new schools and 20 percent of the funding for repairs of schools.7

Although Proposition 1A will contribute to the $40 billion needed over the next decade, California is still in need of more than three times that amount. In the next five years California is going to need 456 additional schools for the growing population. It will take $20 billion to build the new schools and repair the existing buildings.3

Bonds are the primary way that schools get funding for facilities. Based on a recent visit to JFK High School, located in Richmond, we were able to see the immediate impact of local bonds as they received $40 million from a local bond passed in June 1998. Since passing the bond, JFK has been able to improve wall construction to meet safety requirements and to build two new indoor pools. The State constitution requires 66.7 percent of the votes to be yes, in order to pass a bond. Of sixteen local bonds that failed to pass in 1998, 81.2 percent had more than 60 percent of the votes, clearly a majority.8

The State government has always given individual communities the responsibility of funding local schools through local bonds, parcel taxes and other sources. The evidence presented demonstrates that something needs to be changed in funding in order to make California schools a safe and conducive learning environment.

Recommendations

Based on our research, we make the following recommendations. The first, and most obvious, is that we need to increase funding for school construction and maintenance. One method of raising extra money for schools is to pass a bond, but currently it is quite difficult to do because it requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass. Our second recommendation is to reduce this bond approval percentage from sixty-six point seven percent to fifty percent plus one. Senator O'Connell and Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni have both presented this idea in the legislature, and we support such measures and others like them. Yet, because of groups opposed to a simple majority vote, we support a three-fifths, or sixty percent, majority vote if the 50 percent vote measure does not pass. Finally, we recommend that the state offer no interest, "matching money" loans for communities that pass bonds, and that outside agencies, such as large corporations, be encouraged to increase donations to schools. The no interest loans could also be granted on a federal level, with the money being given with only very general restrictions and requirements. All of our recommendations, if implemented, will generate the increased funding necessary to alleviate our safety and overcrowding problems; thus providing a safe and conducive learning environment for all students.

Conclusion

"Hey, check this out," Nick says to the kid sitting next to him as he clicks the mouse button, causing the web site he has been creating to finally go onto the Internet. "I've been working on this thing for so long, but now it's finally finished," he says with a feeling of accomplishment, gazing out the window at the frost, then at the heat waves coming from the new heaters just installed throughout the school. "This place looks so different," he declares, looking around the classroom at the clean, white ceiling, at the new, weatherproof windows, at the repaired walls and floor. "This place looks nice," and he continues to work on the computer. The above is an illustration of what every student must have in order to achieve academic and personal success. These are the improvements that need to be made if California's kids are going to get the education they need. Who wants to attend a school that is unsafe and overcrowded? How can we learn in this kind of an environment? Our schools need the facilities and funding to create safe and conducive learning environments for all students in California.

1. Classen, Goddard. Memorandum to California Local Schools. http://www.yeson Prop1A.com

2. Young, Bernice. "Thousands of Kids Stage Class Walkout" http://www.examiner.com

3.Olszewski, Lori. Schevit, Tanya. "Classes Packed For Coming Year" Sept. 8,1998. On-Line, Internet.9/8/98. www:http://www.sfgate.com

4. Coalition for Adequate School Housing. "Proposition 1A, California's Businesses Need Proposition 1A." November 2, 1998. http://www.cashnet.org/prop1a/business.html.

5. "Proposition 1A, The Facts." November 20, 1998. http://www.cashnet.org/prop1a/facts.html.

6. "California Lags in Slice of U.S. Funds for Schools." October 26, 1998. http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/POLITICS/CALPOL/t000097241.html

7. "Proposition 1A, Questions and Answers." November 20, 1998. http://www.cashnet.org/prop1a/quanda.html

8. "Local School Bond Elections by County." California School Board Association, 1998