OUSD extends deadline to join task force

By: LOUISE ESOLA - Staff Writer | Monday, January 16, 2006 9:19 PM PST ∞

OCEANSIDE ---- The Oceanside Unified School District is giving the community until Friday to sign up for a task force that will help develop an updated master plan for school facilities in the wake of declining enrollment and dwindling state funds.

The Facilities Master Plan Task Force will be charged with evaluating future needs for the declining 21,500-student, K-12 district.

The district announced in November that it was forming such a task force, several weeks after officials found the district's current plans for schools outdated given the district's declining enrollment and shrinking bond cache. The original deadline to volunteer for the task force was set in mid-December, but was extended to give the public more time to sign up, according to a press statement released this month.

Schools were closed Monday and the number of community members who have already signed up was not available.

Officials in November said that the group will also help the district create rules for closing schools, if the district finds that it does not need all of its campuses because of the decline in enrollment.

Over the last two years alone, the district has seen its enrollment drop by more than 1,400 students, according to attendance figures. Mathematically speaking, that's the equivalent of the enrollment of two of the district's elementary schools.

The group, which officials said will be key in steering the district, will in all likelihood include members of the existing Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee and the Attendance Boundary Task Force. Those groups have already spent the last few years mapping recommendations to the district regarding facilities and school boundaries ----- recommendations officials in September said were expired because the district's enrollment has plunged farther than expected.

The decline has not only affected the district's annual budget, a bulk of which relies on state revenues that are based on attendance, it has also disqualified the district from receiving dollar-for-dollar matching school construction dollars from the state, Associate Superintendent Brian Sullivan said late last year.

Typically, the state helps growing districts pay for new campuses by funding about half of new construction. Oceanside counted on receiving the matching funds after voters approved a $125 million bond in 2000.

At the time, the district was in the midst of a decades-long enrollment spike. That spike ended in 2002, when the district for the first time saw its enrollment dip.

In early 2005, officials warned that the district may not be able to fund all of the bond projects promised to voters in 2000, because it could no longer qualify for the matching state dollars. About 75 percent of the bond money has been spent or earmarked for ongoing projects, with more than half a dozen schools still waiting for modernizations and new buildings.

Tackling the future of local bond projects will be on the to-do list for the new task force, officials said at a board meeting last year.

Members of the task force will meet twice a month until June, when it is expected to make a recommendation to the governing board, according to a press statement.

Residents living within the Oceanside Unified School District with interests in education and/or facilities are encouraged by the district to apply to join the task force.

Officials suggested that those interested write to Brian Sullivan, Associate Superintendent of School Services, Oceanside Unified School District, Re: Facilities Master Plan Task Force, 2111 Mission Ave., Oceanside, CA 92054.

According to a press release, letters should include the candidate's current profession, professional background, community interests, and relationship to the district.

For more information call the district's facilities department at (760) 757-2560, Ext. 222.

Contact staff writer Louise Esola at (760) 901-4151 or lesola@nctimes.com.

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