- Welcome to our special board meeting! Today’s meeting has only one topic – a proposal to place a general obligation bond on the November ballot.
- How did we get here? Today is the next big step in a process that began a few years ago. This community overwhelming supported a new direction for the district and that meant a new board of trustees who, from the beginning of their campaigns, emphasized putting the focus back on students. Putting Students First is not just a campaign slogan or a t-shirt, but a way we do our work in Sweetwater.
- Early in their tenure the Board of Trustees chose a new superintendent. My charge has been to make putting students first a reality. We started with restructuring our organization and ensuring all our educators are committed to making students a priority. This has involved revising our LCAP goals and creating a new mission and beliefs that are student-centered, focusing on each student.
- Once we got structures in place, our efforts were concentrated on ensuring this work is being done day to day, from teaching and learning, to culture and equity, to managing our facilities and operations.
- As part of the Sweetwater story, we needed to look at areas of the district that were ignored or neglected or just not done well. And, there were definitely areas out there that needed to be addressed. So, we have been working these last three years to make it right or make it better – that means equity in all areas for each student.
- Our equity work applies to, not only what happens on campuses and in classrooms, but work focused on the actual campus and classroom conditions themselves. It’s no secret we have aging facilities with significant needs. What exactly did we do to prepare?
- We looked at how we financed facility improvement work. We have more than 20 Community Facility District (CFD) areas. It took us 2 years to reconcile all invoices spent on CFD funds. From that work, we created a model – the Capital Improvement Program Status Report. That report is updated monthly and presented at the first board meeting of each month and to our Citizens Bond Oversight Committee (CBOC).
- We also have taken a look at previous bonds – closing out Prop BB – and exploring how we can access Prop O funds. In the past two years we have accessed over $100M in Prop O funds which has enabled us to complete several projects – the most significant project has been HVAC in every classroom and learning space, and we can say with confidence our students/staff are much happier and more comfortable in air conditioned classrooms this first week of classes.
- Since 2015, we have had a number of public discussions (almost 30 agenda items) during board meetings addressing the feasibility of a new bond proposal. Staff determined we were not ready in 2016 because we believed we needed a more thorough assessment of facility needs and we wanted to determine which projects we could complete with current funding mechanisms.
- The board has made it very clear community input mustbe a vital part of this process. In 2015, and again in 2018 we went out to each school site to get input on facility needs. We asked for student, parent, and staff recommendations. Our Planning & Construction department has now updated all Facilities Master Plans based upon that input.
- The CBOC’s input has also been a critical part of addressing facility needs and representing community stakeholder accountability concerns. They meet monthly at school sites and help provide oversight and general comments about facility needs.
- We conferred with our financial advisor and bond counsel several times since 2016 before we conducted an actual bond feasibility study in March 2018.
- We conducted a secondary tracker study in early summer 2018 to determine whether to firmly recommend a bond proposal for November.
- On July 9th, we brought forward a first read of a bond proposal to get final input from the community and the board of trustees.
- These are all pieces of this puzzle that leads us to today. Throughout all of this process our philosophy and practice has been to keep our doors open and at any point, if anyone has concerns, we have done our best to meet and address those questions with the goals of being open and transparent. In fact, it is not uncommon that our board has postponed a decision on a board item because they, or the public, have more questions.
- We, the staff, could not do our work without the support and guidance of our Board. Sweetwater has, is, and will continue to do our work differently. If the Board of Trustees approves this recommendation today, and regardless of the outcome in November, our work will always be to provide the best possible learning environment for each student in Sweetwater. We will use every possible way to accomplish that goal.
- We can confidently say we are ready to bring this proposal to the voters of the Sweetwater Union High School District.
- Reso No. 4567 – Ordering Bond Election – PDF
- Communication Regarding School Bond Election – PDF