McFarland, Calif., schools are in a conundrum.
They're growing at a rate of about 45 students a year, but the community is still so small the district can't generate the bond revenue it needs to fund expansions.
Meanwhile, the high school is over capacity by about 300 students -- so many that teenagers waiting in the lunch line stretch out of the cafeteria 50 yards into the quad in both rain and heat.
When sports teams go to afternoon practice, they take part in an orchestrated shuffle that sends baseball players down the street to the middle school baseball diamond, and women's softball teams to the city park. When pep rallies are held in the gym, just 500 students can attend -- leaving roughly half the school not participating.
To fix some of those problems, McFarland Unified School District wants voters to approve a $20 million bond. It comes just months after voters rejected a $110 million bond in November that Michael Turnipseed, executive director of the Kern County Taxpayers Association, described as "the most ridiculous bond in the history of the state of California."
Ridiculous because the interest was so high that it would have ended up costing taxpayers in rural McFarland more than $230 million over 30 years, or about $19,500 for all 1,700 homeowners in town.
It failed.
"$20 million is much more reasonable," McFarland Superintendent Victor Hopper said.
That figure, however, still exceeds what the state would allow McFarland to charge residents under Proposition 39, the state law that governs bond measures. So instead, the district has written the bond under Proposition 46, which allows districts to ask for any amount of money it wants with no limits and no independent oversight, but with one caveat -- it must gain approval from two-thirds of voters. Proposition 39 bonds require just 55 percent.
"We're in a quandary. We're landlocked and land-poor, and we're getting an influx of students moving into the district, and I don't know where these people are coming from," Hopper said. "We're losing about 200 kids to Wonderful charter academy, but we're going up 45 kids a year."
Opposition rising
The last time McFarland tried to pass a bond, it was polling at about 62 percent approval prior to ElectionDay, Hopper said. Then it attracted a formal opposition campaign -- a rarity among bond measures, which usually gain broad support.
Last year saw historic records statewide both in the number of bonds passed -- 154 -- and the amount voters approved, roughly $27 billion. But McFarland's was one of about 30 bonds that failed in California.
"As soon as we got opposition, we were done," Hopper said.
And that's not changing this time around, either. A group launched a formal opposition committee to Measure D about two weeks ago, saying there's been minimal communication from the district about the bond, a lack of transparency in how dollars would be spent and that it could upend a beloved farm ag students use at McFarland Middle School.
Hopper said the ag program's farm would be relocated away from residential homes -- the farm odors elicit complaints from neighbors, he added -- but that it would also gain a couple more acres of space. It currently sits on a 10-acre lot behind McFarland Middle School, but students use just about 1.5 acres, Hopper said.
In its place, the district would lay down two soccer fields, two softball fields, six tennis courts, a baseball diamond and space for parking, Hopper said.
The farm would be relocated to a lot adjacent to Horizon Elementary School, which was built last year and is located around the corner from the middle school. It sits across from almond orchards and grazing land.
The amount of space the ag program has been given has been shrinking for years, said Karina Dionicio, a treasurer with the No on Measure D Campaign. For years, much of the 10-acre plot was filled with almond trees and cornstalk, then the trees eventually died in the drought.
Since then, the farm has been relegated to a smaller corner of the field. The equipment is old and rusty, and the structures dated.
Board members have given Dionicio their word, she says, that the program wouldn't be touched and the farm would get extra space when relocated, but that's not good enough for her. She wants it memorialized in writing.
"There's been a lack of communication and nothing that makes us feel we can trust their word," Dionicio said.
Diaz called the group's complaints "unreasonable," and said the district has already set aside $200,000 from the general fund to rebuild the farm in another location if the bond passes. The new farm would be built before the old one is demolished, Hopper added.
"They're just one part of this," Diaz said of the ag students. "What about the students who don't have a state-of-the-art multipurpose room? Or don't have a cafeteria to eat? Why do we have to settle for old buildings that their parents and grandparents used?"
Projects drafted
Bond project lists are seldom if ever included in the bond measure language to provide districts flexibility in how dollars are spent. The district has, however, released a draft project list that includes two two-story buildings that would accommodate 20 classrooms at McFarland High and McFarland Middle schools that would cost about $10.5 million. Roughly $9.8 million would be used to build a new middle school sports complex and to convert a cafeteria to a weight and wrestling room at McFarland High.
The district needs those sports facilities because it has been accepted into the South Sequoia League, Hopper said, which requires frosh-soph teams. That means the school needs more practice fields since McFarland High has historically only had junior varsity and varsity teams, he said.
Hopper and Diaz underscored the importance of the sports programs as a way to get kids invested in school while keeping them stimulated in the afternoons.
"What other activities are there in McFarland if they don't play sports?" Hopper asked. "None. We're small."
The district anticipates receiving about $9 million in state hardship money that could offset the cost of constructing classroom buildings.
A planned 1,000-seat multipurpose room that would open into an outdoor amphitheater would be open for community use outside of school hours, Diaz said. It would be the largest venue in town.
Dionicio also said her group has issues with the amount of money the district wants. Homeowners would pay $60 per $100,000 of assessed valuation of their properties annually -- about double what most bonds under Proposition 39 are allowed to legally charge. The interest on the $20 million loan would amount to about $21 million in interest over its 30-year life.
But Turnipseed, who organized opposition to McFarland's bond measure in November, said the board has made substantial changes and the interest rate of about 1.6 percent is as low as the district can get.
"This is the best they could do," Turnipseed said.
