View: The Truth About High School Sports Fields

I believe the recent Patch opinion piece, “” by Geline Covey, is misleading and one-sided in nature. The entire West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD), including the El Cerrito community, has benefited greatly from the Bond program to rebuild our schools.

With the upcoming rebuilding of Fairmont Elementary and the start of construction at the new site of Portola Middle School, all of the public school buildings in El Cerrito will be new.  WCCUSD will be one of the first school districts in the the state and nation to rebuild most if not all of the its schools, all while being one of the poorest, with many so-called negatives attached to us.

Rebuilding our schools is something we were not supposed to do, being a “poor urban school district.” In 2005 the society of civil engineers gave the entire public education facilities in the U.S.A. a D-. This dubious distinction does not belong to this community anymore because our community does value education and our youth: we taxed ourselves to do it while other districts with greater material wealth have not.

The WCCUSD has been able to build more schools at a lower cost per square footage than any district in the State due to the due diligence and good management of both the staff and the trustees. The district's ability to continue its building program during the downturn in the economy has benefited the community and the district greatly. By being able to take advantage of the shortage of work-ready projects at this time, the district is seeing project bids that are lower than projected budget costs. 

At the same time, we are receiving significant state matching funds that in a more active market might not be available. When the program started, the district took advantage of a similar situation. As the first district in the state able to pass a Prop 39 Bond (in which the voting threshold was changed to 55% for facilities only), the district was able to take advantage of a time when there was very little large-scale construction work, therefore leveraging the value of our tax dollars. The result is that we have completed more buildings and received more state matching funds than almost any other district in the State of California.

The WCCUSD Citizen Bond Oversight Committee is a historic committee in that it's the first Prop 39 Oversight Committee in the State of California. We conduct regular meetings above and beyond the state requirements, and our General Obligation Bond (which passed with a two-thirds majority) is overseen by the CBOC, which has a higher oversight standard than a General Obligation Bond. Our CBOC membership is one of the largest in the state, even though our over-all district size is much smaller than those in Los Angeles or San Diego, who have the only two comparably sized bond programs in California. We are also looked to by other districts in the state as a model of how to run a CBOC.

All public school construction projects go through a design review process by the Division of the State Architect (DSA). Public schools in the U.S.A. are built to the highest standard of construction, and can be used as public shelters in case of emergency. Private schools do not go through the same rigorous review of their new school site plans.

Delays in the field project came in several forms.  Soil issues (termed “geo-technical”) came to light when construction was started on the area of the temporary campus (which will be the new baseball/softball/soccer fields) and the area of the new tennis courts. The unforeseen need to install piers under the retaining walls of the tennis courts was impossible to know until the ground was open and being worked on. The district respected neighbor requests to move the fence line and remove a walkway on the east side of the baseball field as well as making changes to the baseball backstop. 

There were also other delays in the synthetic turf being delivered and the addition of a community and coach request for backboards on the tennis courts. Because school site construction is subject to strict state building regulations through DSA, these issues are things that are out of the district's and architects' control. These delays are not uncommon for projects this size and nature, and in my opinion, they were handled in a timely and professional manner without significant cost over-runs.

El Cerrito has the densest population-to-open space ratio in the school district. The importance of having good recreational facilities for our students and community at large is of great importance.  Making sure that the facilities that we build are built right the first time will make them last longer, serve the community better and in the long run cost less.

Ms. Covey's article is mistaken about a number of points of fact. The ECHS total cost to date is approximately $140 million for the main building and the both field projects. Not the one quarter BILLION and $13 million Ms. Covey is citing.

Her assertion that there are no basketball courts being installed at the high school is incorrect.  The new courts will be located on the blacktop between the shop buildings and the playing fields. The placement of the courts was shown to the community at the May 25^th meeting after Ms. Covey asked for the courts in the community meetings of April 28^th. The architects that she criticizes in her article have listened to her and put them in the plan. This issue was also discussed at the last two community meetings with her present.

The football stadium is the last part of the school to be completed, and at this time it is scheduled to go out to bid in the spring of 2012 and take roughly one year to complete.

Ms. Covey has been an outspoken critic of the entire rebuilding process of the high school from the beginning of the project. Her labeling of ECHS as the Taj El Cerrito is inflammatory at best. The truth is, it's a high school, a big one, and in today's world it costs money to build them. To put things in another perspective, the current budget for De Anza High School is $165 million.

The rebuilding of public schools is a responsible act by the community to take care of its youngest citizens and its future. I would encourage anyone who is interested in knowing the facts about the bond program to read the fiscal and performance audits. Both audits are done every year and the eight fiscal and performance audits I have read over the last ten years do not support Ms. Covey's point of view that the district is wasting your tax dollars.

I myself believe that the rebuilding of our district schools was long overdue. My family was in the El Cerrito high school when the earthquakes struck the other day, both times. I was not worried about my wife and sons because I knew the structure they were in was the strongest building in town. Some day these buildings might be the place our community will go to for aid should we have the large earthquake that is projected to hit the Hayward or San Andreas fault line. And we will not be like the communities in China where thousands of children died because their buildings came down on them. There are schools in the Bay Area that have that risk today, either because their communities will not pass bonds to rebuild their schools, or because the bond programs they had were poorly run and could not finish what they started.

I strongly encourage any members of the public with questions to make use of the publicly available documentation on the WCCUSD's Bond Oversight website, at wccusd-bond-oversight.com.

Robert Studdiford is the Chairman of the WCCUSD Citizen Bond Oversight Committee*, member of the WCCUSD Citizen Budget Advisory Committee* for the last six years, Ed Fund Distinguished Citizen of the Year 2010, active PTA Leader for 11 years, coach for 11 years in the El Cerrito Futbol Club youth soccer/boys league, and parent of two students at El Cerrito High School.
*Titles for information purposes only.