They need 9,000 signatures to force an election this fall to fund schools
The well-oiled school fundraising machine hit the streets here on Friday, formally launching its most recent attempt to raise money.
More than a dozen leaders from the Parent Teacher Associations at area schools met in front of Bob’s Market on Ocean Park Boulevard to pick up their marching orders from leading school boosters.
The idea is to gather 13,000 signatures by May 5. The group needs 9,000 signatures from registered Santa Monica voters to qualify a proposed charter amendment for the ballot next November.
The amendment would require City Hall to give the district at least $6 million each year. It also would force the local government to increase its funding of local schools by 1 percent each year, assuming City Hall’s overall budget — currently about $350 million — grows by at least 3.5 percent.
40D,“We should be able to slam dunk this in six weeks,” said Rick Gates, a former PTA president. “I went way out on a limb and told the campaign to forget the paid signature gatherers. This is grassroots. We can do it.”
“We should be able to slam dunk this in six weeks,”
“I went way out on a limb and told the campaign to forget the paid signature gatherers. This is grassroots. We can do it.”
“We should be able to slam dunk this in six weeks.” — said Rick Gates, a former PTA president. — RICK GATES Former PTA president
The amendment has drawn criticism from public officials, some of whom are parents with children in the public school system. They maintain the city has done everything it can to help the district — and much more than other cities do. City Hall gives the schools upwards of $5 million annually.
Mayor Richard Bloom criticized the school boosters for pushing forward their plan behind closed doors, even as the council was exploring alternatives for finding consistent, long-term funding for the schools.
“One of the places where this measure falls seriously short, is it does not provide funding,” Bloom said. “Parents of public school children know that one of the many problems that plagues the schools are unfunded federal and state mandates. This imposes an unfunded city mandate and it’s fiscally irresponsible...”
Bloom said he hopes residents and the individual PTA groups will consider both sides of the issue before they decide to support the charter amendment. He called for a community dialogue on the matter, something he said supporters have scrupulously avoided, choosing instead to conduct an internal dialogue.
“This is a measure that would fundamentally change the relationship between the city and the school district, and it will also have economic repercussions that go well beyond the funding of schools,” he said. “If it passes, we will have to find the money somewhere, and that could mean fire, it could mean police, it could mean social services, it could mean parks and recreation — in fact that’s the most likely.”
Those possible repercussions haven’t deterred members of Community for Excellent Public Schools, the group organizing the push for the charter amendment. CEPS has broad-based support in the community, bringing together political opposites like Denny Zane, the father of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, long City Hall’s ruling party, and Chris Harding, a prominent land-use attorney and critic of the SMRR establishment.
On Friday, the mostly female group of PTA leaders and other volunteers reiterated their commitment to raising more money. Sheila Spencer, whose son is in kindergarten at Franklin Elementary School, said she moved to Santa Monica so her children could attend the local schools.
It’s a good thing that parents aren’t forced to send their children to private schools to get a good education, said Spencer, who added she spent $5,000 a year sending her children to pre-school at the private Evergreen Community School on Colorado Boulevard. Tuition there is now close to $9,000, she said.
Asked about her thoughts on the resistance to the charter amendment from city officials, Spencer replied, “I think there’s been a tremendous surplus of money within the city and there’s been significant funding on other projects — and schools should be a priority over other projects.”
Volunteers on Friday were given materials highlighting what to tell residents to get them to sign their petition and detailing specific procedural details about gathering signatures. They were told to take the instructions back to their schools and recruit more signature gatherers and other volunteers. Organizers said they will try the grassroots approach until March 2, when they will reassess their plan and determine how to proceed with “phase two,” which may include hiring outside help and other strategies, organizers said.
CEPS leaders declined to share the documents that were handed out to volunteers, saying they didn’t want to compromise their strategy in hopes of forcing an election. But one thing is certain — the boosters likely will employ organized, targeted signature drives, phone banking and other, more sophisticated political tools in their effort to pass the charter amendment, they said.
“It’s really part of our very strategic, secret strategy,” said Shari Davis, CEPS co-chair. “There are a lot of people that would like to stop this from passing — we don’t want them to know our strategy.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 7, 2004. Read the original PDF.