November 13, 2008

Facility Legislation for Chula Vista Elementary School District

While the safe advice for school districts with special facility needs is to wait for the next school bond, not all districts can heed it.  Last year, Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) ran a bill to allow them to calculate eligibility in the same manner as unified districts – by attendance areas.  That bill, Senate Bill 1556, involved a number of amendments and a lot of work by Senator Denise Ducheny and Chula Vista Superintendent Lowell Billings and his staff. 

SB 1556 initially would have allowed a number of districts to utilize its provisions, but as the bill moved through the process only CVESD expressed ongoing support.  In a series of conversations with the Administration we determined that we could gain Administration support by narrowing the bill to a single district.

In order to build support in the Legislature and with the Administration, CVESD had to make the case that there was something unique about their situation that required special treatment.  CVESD is a school district with over 100 square miles.  It is traversed by four different freeways and contains a large amount of new development occurring in the eastern and southern portions of the district.  However, the built-out sections of CVESD are beginning to decline in enrollment.  So CVESD was faced with the impossible situation of having no eligibility and seats disbursed in schools dozens of miles from the new development and the new families.

When examining the situation, state level decision-makers were willing to concede that it made no sense to try and bus the students across town to fill in a few seats in one school and a few seats in another.  But they were concerned about the precedent of creating eligibility exceptions.  When the bill finally reached the Governor’s office it had been narrowed to satisfy these concerns by applying only where there is more than 100 square miles, more than 20,000 students and more than 37 elementary schools.  In addition, negotiations resulted in a commitment by the Office of Public School Construction to try and find other alternatives to generate eligibility for CVESD.

This was not an effort simply handed off to the lobbyist to “go see what you can get.”  Superintendent Billings was actively involved in building community support so that by the time we met with the Administration, supporters included local city officials and local developers.  This community-wide effort resulted in SB 1556 being signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on September 30, 2008.  The bill will become effective on January 1, 2009.

If you have questions about SB 1556 or legislation for unique situations contact Ernie Silva at (916) 441-3300 or esilva@m-w-h.com.