On a crisp spring morning, three boys sat on a cinderblock wall in front of the School of Creative and Performing Arts in Paradise Hills. Staff and students at the magnet school, often referred to as SCPA, have been grappling with recurring plumbing failures. Those failures required porta-potties and bottled water to be shipped to the campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been temporarily fixed, but the problems always come back,\u201d one boy said in between bites of Jack in the Box french fries. \u201cThey should just fix it already. People here need water.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nasty,\u201d another boy said, referring to the porta-potties. \u201cThere\u2019s pee all over them,\u201d he said with a laugh.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
For some, though, the plumbing situation is no laughing matter. From February to March, the district fully or partially shut off water at the campus about a half dozen times due to infrastructure failures.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Emails obtained by Voice of San Diego underscore the frustration felt by staff members. One teacher named Will Carter described a \u201cpattern of repeated infrastructure failure that the district has failed to permanently resolve.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThree months of recurring outages \u2014 at a school with a documented history of plumbing failures \u2014 is not a temporary emergency,\u201d Carter wrote. \u201cA sewage backup through concrete pipes on school grounds \u2014 in front of occupied buildings \u2014 constitutes a direct biohazard exposure event.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
District spokesperson Samer Naji disputed that characterization. In an email, he wrote that SCPA\u2019s leaks were of water lines, not wastewater or sewer systems.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been no biohazard exposure,\u201d Naji wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But district spokespeople acknowledge the plumbing situation hasn\u2019t been ideal, and that a comprehensive renovation is years off.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many at SCPA are struggling to understand why any of this is happening in the first place. After all voters approved a nearly $3 billion bond in 2012 that promised a fix. In the years since, voters approved two more bonds that district leaders said would tackle the issue. Those three bond measures gave the district nearly $10 billion to spend on construction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A decade and a half later, though, SCPA is still waiting for its plumbing fix. And now, district leaders are gearing up to put another bond measure on the ballot later this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bonds, Bonds, Bonds\u00a0<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s $2.8 billion bond measure in 2012 promised to \u201crepair or replace aged\/deteriorated plumbing and sewer systems\u201d at nearly every single San Diego Unified school. It specifically cited SCPA as a school where the plumbing would be updated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Six years after that, the district copied and pasted that exact language into Measure YY, a $3.5 billion bond. Once again, officials specifically promised a fix at SCPA. That November, 65 percent of San Diego voters approved the measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Four years after that, voters approved another bond, the $3.2 billion Measure U. The district once again promised to \u201crepair or replace deteriorating plumbing and underground sewer systems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite those promises, a fix never came.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Long Wait for a Big Fix\u00a0<\/p>\n
District officials don\u2019t plan to do comprehensive work on SCPA\u2019s plumbing until late 2028 or early 2029, when the school is slated to be fully renovated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For some staff at SCPA, though, that timeline doesn\u2019t seem quick enough.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In one email, Carter wrote that the coming modernization does not excuse the district from \u201cits legal and contractual obligation to address the current, active safety and environmental maintenance needs in a timely manner.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStaff and students cannot wait through a multi-year modernization planning and construction timeline while operating in conditions that do not meet basic health, safety, and sanitation standards today,\u201d Carter continued.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jamie Ries, another spokesperson for San Diego Unified, wrote in an email that all but one \u201csmall leak\u201d has been repaired by district maintenance staff. The only negative impact of that ongoing leak was \u201ca small wet area on the lawn,\u201d she continued.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But she admitted that scheduling fixes for the multiple leaks has been challenging.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Renovated plumbing is far from the only unfulfilled promise at SCPA. In 2012\u2019s Measure Z, the district listed nearly 20 renovations the bond would bring to SCPA. Measure YY, passed six years later, duplicated much of that project list and added a couple more priorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nearly 14 years later, only a handful of those projects have been completed<\/a>, according to district officials. Of the 20 projects listed on Measure YY (a dozen of which carried over from a previous bond) less than half have been completed. Those included installing a new emergency communications system, electrical upgrades, solar energy systems and a renovation of the school\u2019s performing arts facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n While public entities are usually required to spend bond money on the types of projects they listed as priorities while pitching their measures, they aren\u2019t required to complete every project listed in their proposals.\u00a0<\/p>\n A big reason for the neglect at SCPA has been uncertainty. For years, district officials have been considering moving the high school campus downtown. That effort was ultimately abandoned after district leaders deemed it unrealistic. Staff at SCPA also backed a full renovation rather than wait to see if the relocation dream materialized.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n With the San Diego Community College District stepping into the civic core redevelopment void left by city officials<\/a>, though, talks may start again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Another Bond on the Horizon<\/p>\n Even as staff and students wait for the long-promised renovation, some cosmetic fixes have been going forward. According to multiple SCPA staff members, district maintenance workers have been painting buildings. The choice to touch up coats of paint before doing the hard work of infrastructure fixes doesn\u2019t sit well with some staff members.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is far from the first time San Diego Unified\u2019s spending priorities have raised eyebrows<\/a>. During the 2010s, the district consistently directed its multi-billion-dollar treasure chest of bond money toward upgrades of athletic facilities, like new football fields, rather than rotting infrastructure at some schools. Between 2009 and 2015, nearly half of the bond money spent went toward athletic facilities. And despite repeated promises to fix and install air conditioning at all schools, some district students have still dealt with hot classrooms in recent years<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n