I’m happy and proud to see this story from the Monterey Herald. Four elementary schools fixed, six to go, thanks to the $90 million Salinas Measure A bond campaign in 2006. Rick Rivas and I did the communications, Gary Karnes did the field organizing, and the school district staff and parents worked really, really hard.
Alisal completes repairs at four schools
Four down and six to go.
As Alisal Union School District administrators and teachers on Friday celebrated the renovation of four schools, ridding them of mold, Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas announced plans to begin the process of fixing six more.
“The good thing is that the state started issuing bonds again,” she said. Teachers and students of John E. Steinbeck Elementary gathered in the balloon-decorated cafeteria to mark the conclusion of the school’s repairs, almost three years after contamination was first discovered in four of its classrooms.
Micaela Leal, 11, still remembers when she and her classmates first felt the impact of mold. Her classroom in 2006 was not one of the contaminated ones, but the portable units brought in to house the students from the affected rooms covered the basketball courts and much of the space available for recreation. “There wasn’t any room to play, and we had all this noise — sawing and drilling,” Micaela said. “It’s a lot better now. It feels like fourth grade again.” …
Measure A, a $90million bond, was approved in 2006. At the time, the multipurpose rooms of Bardin, Alisal, Jesse G. Sanchez, Virginia Rocca Barton, Fremont and Frank Paul elementary schools had been shut down because of water intrusion. Those rooms have never reopened and they still need repair, Zendejas said.
“This is urgent for us and we knew that the classrooms were priority and that is why we fixed the classrooms first,” she said…
By CLAUDIA MELÉNDEZ SALINAS
Herald Salinas Bureau
http://www.montereyherald.com/search/ci_13477942
