Santee Schools Plead for Assistance : Failure to Anticipate Rapid Growth Led to Overcrowding

SACRAMENTO —  Saying their schools are bursting at the seams, Santee school officials pleaded here Wednesday for legislation that would force developers and city officials to listen to complaints about school overcrowding long after redevelopment projects are under way.

The proposed 706-acre Town Center development in the rapidly growing East San Diego County city could double the enrollments of two schools already filled to capacity, said Santee school board member Barbara Ryan.

And Assistant Supt. Joe W. Spaulding said there is little chance that the district can qualify, under existing formulas, for state funds to build schools.

The Santee district’s plight, said Karen M. Steentofte, legislative advocate for the California School Boards Assn., is typical of school systems from around the state that have underestimated the impact of redevelopment projects.

But lobbyists for city and county governments say the school systems have mainly themselves to blame if growth-induced enrollment increases catch them by surprise. Under current law, school systems get to review redevelopment project areas and ask for property tax revenue adjustments before plans are approved.

The school officials are backing a measure by Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) that would require redevelopment agencies to hold public hearings when school districts show that they are suffering from overcrowding caused by growth.

The measure does not require that builders or city officials make any financial concessions to the schools. “It only requires that they give them an audience,” Stirling said.

Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino) said Stirling’s bill may not be “strong enough.” Even if the overcrowding can be blamed on shortsightedness by school officials, “it is the students that suffer,” Ayala said.

But Stirling said his bill is at least “a step in the right direction,” and it would allow school districts to build public pressure for concessions to ease overcrowding.

The Senate Local Government Committee heard testimony on the bill Wednesday, but Chairwoman Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) postponed a vote until next week.

In recent years, school officials say, they have become more sophisticated in assessing the potential impact of redevelopment projects. As conditions for approving redevelopment plans, the school systems are asking for donations of land, school expansions and whole schools, they say.

But in years past, Steentofte said, the school systems, relying on state equalization formulas, missed their opportunities to ask for tax revenue adjustments or other concessions to limit the impacts of growth.

Spaulding said enrollment in the Santee district was declining in 1982, when the city council defined the Town Center project area, and school officials did not foresee the potential burden on their facilities.

He said Santee and Rio Seco schools could each get 1,000 to 1,500 new students--more than twice their current enrollments--as a result of housing in the project.

Envisioned as the hub of the city, which was incorporated in 1980, Town Center will include commercial as well as residential development, on what is now largely vacant land.

Construction has begun on only the first 112 acres, which will include 800 residential units. The overall project is not expected to be completed for at least 10 years.