Funding for Schools

* As our children returned to school last week, many of them entered aging facilities needing repair, upgrade and improvement. Most of them sat in classes with over 30, often close to 40, peers. In many places around the state, class was held in “temporary” trailers disguised as classrooms.

With the slim defeat of the June bond proposition and the state Legislature’s failure to place a new, smaller request before the voters in November, the facilities are guaranteed to get older, class sizes larger, and the “temporary” trailers won’t be leaving.

For the fastest growing districts in Orange County, the short-term impact is that 13 building projects worth about $60 million are indefinitely on hold. In the longer term, Santa Ana Unified School District alone needs 15 new schools plus expansions and maintenance of existing schools. It is estimated that $6 billion worth of new classrooms are needed statewide.

The entire issue of school funding needs to be reviewed and replaced with a rational system. The question is how long are we going to wait before we insist that all of our children have proper school facilities without regard to a Beverly Hills, 90210, or a Santa Ana, 92701, address?

MARK PEREW

Santa Ana