Amid economic uncertainty and a lack of state matching funds, the Visalia (Calif.) Unified School Board has voted not to move forward with plans for a fifth high school.
The Visalia Times Delta reports that even though a successful 2018 bond election included $75 million for the high school, the district still is about $30 million short of what is needed to construct the high school.
"There really aren't going to be any matching funds from the state, based on how this economy is going," board president John Crabtree says. "There's a whole lot of things that are going to change that we can't possibly imagine. To suggest that we would even allow ourselves to spend another $30 million on a high school at this time would just be crazy to me,"
Though the new high school project is on hold, the modernization projects that were part of the bond issue will continue as planned, Visalia Superintendent Tamara Ravalín says.
That includes $20 million for upgrades and modernization to 18 sites in the district. Another $10 million is for upgrading things like middle and high school science labs, as well as security upgrades at all schools.
Because there won't be a fifth high school for now, the board will have staff conduct a boundary study in an effort to even the attendance at the four high schools.
Redwood has more than 2,300 students, making it the most attended in Visalia. El Diamante has about 2,060 students, Golden West has about 1,800 and Mt. Whitney has about 1,650.
"I would really like staff to look into doing a boundary study now and also see what we can do to jazz up our other high schools so they can accommodate 2,000 students each," board member Walta Gamoian says.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the district already faced uncertainty about how much the state would chip in for the new school.
The most recent state school construction bond, Proposition 13, was defeated in March. Even if it had passed, the state matching funds wouldn't have been 50-50, as the district staff was told when conversations about the new school began in 2017.
