• A new community school for a price tag of $578 million—swimming pool included
Sometimes headlines speak for themselves. For example, an Associated Press headline screams “Home sales plunge 27 pct. to lowest in 15 years.”
Economic woes.
Frankly, I'd Rather Be Fishing
And a Bloomberg Businessweek headline reads “California Defers $2.9 Billion for Schools, Counties.”
More economic woes.
With all this economic crisis stuff going on—bills not being paid and states like California going without a budget for a couple of months—I tend to wonder if anyone reads those headlines.
Not only are homes not selling, but put a focus on school districts around the country and you see possible program cuts, mergers, layoffs and shorter academic years.
So, what to do? If you happen to be one of the lowest-performing school districts in the U.S. with a dropout rate of 35 percent according to ABC News, you spend a ton of money on a brand new school.
That’s what the L.A. Unified School District, Los Angeles, Calif., has done.
They’ve added a marble memorial to Robert F. Kennedy and a state-of-the-art swimming pool, a manicured public park and fine art murals.
At a cost of $578 million, why not go for the best!
Of course with California delaying paying $2.9 million to schools and counties in September, there may not be many teachers around to enjoy the fruits and labors of the taxpayers who “built” the $578 million “Taj Mahal” K-12 school to house 4,200 students.
Granted the school is built on the site of the Ambassador Hotel where Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan on June 5, 1968. But $578 million?
According to an article by ABC News, the school includes “an ornate auditorium suitable for hosting the Oscars and a faculty dining room that the superintendent says is ‘better than most restaurants.’ ”
According to the article, the price tag for the building, “which works out to about $250,000 per pupil,” makes the school “more expensive than the Bird’s Nest stadium built for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China,” for $500 million.
And it’s also more expensive than the $400 million home of the Denver Broncos in Denver, Colo.—Invesco Field at Mile High.
I guess the school board wants a Super Bowl title.
So, how can the district justify a new $578 million school when they face a $640 million shortfall?
Heck, just during the past two years, the same district has also had to layoff 3,000 teachers.
Did I mention the new school may not have any teachers?
The district is also considering shortening the school year by six days to save money.
Los Angeles school district officials say the money for the building came from voter-approved bonds—an account that is separate from what is set aside for textbooks and teachers.
So, school officials had no idea cuts and such may be on the horizon and didn’t plan for them? But they did want a new building and planned for that with an expensive price tag?
I mean, you have to plan for a state-of-the-art swimming pool and marble memorial, don’t you? Or was that approved at the last school board meeting on a lark?
This picture just doesn’t make sense.
And it’s not the first. A $377 million Roybal Learning Center and a $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School have also recently been built in L.A.
“Welcome to the Alice in Wonderland world of education politics in Los Angeles,” said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution. “Up is down, down is up, and none of these decisions has anything to do with kids.”
And California’s not alone.
There’s a $235 million school campus in New York City while a Brunswick, N.J., high school was built for $185 million. And a brand new Newton, Mass., high school cost $197 million.
Like I’ve said before, something is just wrong with this picture.
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