ON THE TOWN:School board passes the progress test with vote

Over the years, my chief issue with our school board has been the lack of any meaningful progress in several Costa Mesa schools. It seems to me that shuffling people around and coming up with another study was all they seemed to be able to muster.

As I have in the past, I will seize almost any opportunity to praise the school board when I see progress. This is one of those opportunities.

After much debate and a lot of input, the board voted 5-2 last Tuesday to give parents the choice to send their children to the fourth grade at College Park, Paularino and Sonora elementary schools, each of which has classes from kindergarten through third grade. Under the proposed system, parents can keep their children at the neighborhood schools or move them on to Davis Elementary School, which offers fourth- through sixth-grade classes.

At their meeting, the board was faced with a “no-win” situation. As with many education issues, which tend to teeter on emotional decisions, there was no way to please everyone. Even the board was not in complete harmony on the new configurations for the schools.

I’ll be honest and state that I have no idea whether this will generate higher test scores or grades, or a greater interest in education by the students or their parents.

What I do know is what would have happened had the board done nothing.

This time, board members took action, and I applaud it.

Opposition came from the teachers union as it objected to the projected cost of the restructuring.

I sympathize with union leaders, who saw a connection between restructuring money and the pay scale of our teachers, who are at the bottom of the county’s pay-scale totem pole.

I believe that every single member of this school board would like nothing more than to pass on a nice pay raise to our teachers, but those numbers don’t always work out.

What concerns me is the missed opportunity by the union when the city was considering the vote on affordable housing among the gazillion units just approved by the Costa Mesa City Council.

Before continuing, it is important to stress that affordable housing is not indigent housing or shelter for the homeless. Affordable housing is for people who are gainfully employed but do not have sufficient means to live in the more upscale areas in which they work.

As you may recall, a council majority decided unwisely to eliminate any affordable-housing requirement for the area, which is going up over at South Coast Metro.

The affordable-housing discussion presented a rare opportunity for the teachers union to work together with the city to provide an incentive to attract and keep more high-quality teachers in the area.

The concept should have been one of giving housing perks to teachers, such as zero-down or very low-interest loans or lower prices or something in exchange for their services for a time.

If the union is so concerned about the welfare of its members, we should have seen someone from the union take a cue from former Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev and pound a shoe on the podium at City Hall to demand this vital break for teachers.

We should have seen a serious public relations campaign shaming the council into doing the right thing.

Instead, a huge opportunity passed.

Newport Beach does not get a pass on this issue, as the teachers work in a district that serves both cities. Newport Beach, too, needs an affordable-housing program for teachers, police and firefighters.

More has to be done to help Costa Mesa’s schools. But anything other than shuffling people around or commissioning another study is doing something different in order to achieve a different result. And for that, the board deserves credit.

Someone pinch me, because I refuse to believe that a Newport Beach resident actually wrote a letter to this newspaper that suggested an airport in El Toro.

And no, it was not lost by the post office and dated from the year 1990.

The writer sets the stage by suggesting a new flight path that travels over the homes of the folks who have opposed the airport for years, then suggests that a solution for them is through the El Toro airport development.

The expression “get over it” comes to mind.