REMINDER/As Students Go Back to School, District Officials Prepare for Battle

Business Wire, Sept 6, 2000

Assignment/Metro Editors & Education Writers

REMINDER...for Wednesday (Sept. 6)

--(BUSINESS WIRE)

   Santa Ana Unified and Rancho Santiago Community College Districts
     Vow to Take Their Fight To Washington, D.C. With the Message:
     "The Most Crowded School District in California Deserves Its
                     Land at Former Tustin Base"

WHEN:   Wednesday, Sept. 6
        10 a.m.

WHERE:  Valley High School (near Edinger & Fairview)
        1801 S. Greenville
        Santa Ana, Calif. 92704
        (Thomas Bros. 1999 - page 829 Grid B-6)

WHO:  State Senator Joe Dunn (D-Garden Grove)
      Assembly Member Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana)
      Orange County Superintendent of Schools John F. Dean, Ph.D.
      Santa Ana Unified School District Superintendent Al Mijares, Ph.D.
      Rancho Santiago Community College District Chancellor Edward
       Hernandez, Ph.D.
      Santa Ana Unified School Board President John Palacio
      Representative of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana)
       Sara Anderson
      Former White House Official and Assembly Member Tom Umberg

VISUALS: Severe overcrowding -- high school built for 1,800 students
          accommodates about 2,600.
         Students doubled up for classes.
         More than 40 portable buildings to accommodate the student
          overflow.

BACKGROUND: In a dramatic 11th hour showdown, on Aug. 31, 2000, Senate
Bill 1142 passed the Assembly but missed approval in the Senate
seconds before midnight. The Bill would have guaranteed 75 acres of
the 1,800+ at the former Tustin Marine Base would go as originally
planned to the "Education First" coalition of the SAUSD and the Rancho
Santiago Community College District. Instead, Tustin-backed
legislators staged a filibuster preventing the bill from approval.
Instead of helping meet the needs of the most crowded school district
in California, the city of Tustin will opt to build its second golf
course.

The city of Santa Ana is 98% built out; the need for new schools has
reached a crisis level. The SAUSD has grown 23% in the past 10 years
and is expected to grow another 33% in the next 10 years. The SAUSD,
which is 92% Hispanic, already has nearly twice as many students in
portable buildings (24,000) than the Tustin Unified School District
has students (14,000). Yet the city of Tustin has allocated 180 acres
at the Marine Base for school districts including Tustin Unified and
Irvine Unified, neither of which need new schools at this time.
Enrollments within RSCCD have increased 45% since 1995.