Final Letter to Jackson

1005 47th Street San Diego, CA 92102 | www.gomperscharter.org 619.263.2171 office 619.264.4342 fax Office of the Board of Directors May 28, 2009 Board of Directors Cecil H. Steppe Dear President Jackson: Chairman Dede Alpert Mari Cruz Avalos Peter Chodzko I write to you in my capacity as Chair of the Board of Directors for Gompers Charter in Chollas Tyler Cramer View. We have been advised by District staff that our plans to develop an educational complex Michelle Evans Kimiko Fukuda for Gompers Charter which will serve grades six through twelve, and an athletic complex to be Rafael Hernandez used jointly by Gompers Charter and Millennial Technical Middle School (MTM) have been Scott Himelstein Winifred Hudgies rejected by you, as President of the Board, and fellow Trustees. San Diego Unified School Cecil Lytle District (SDUSD) staff members have clearly communicated the District’s intent to start Bud Mehan Najib Mesdaq construction on projects related to the expansion of the adjacent property of MTM, including a Vincent M. Riveroll new activity center, and new classrooms. The design your staff provided shows a clear David Valladolid encroachment onto the existing property of Gompers Charter. We have also been notified that the District plans to take over much of our existing decomposed granite and dirt fields to create a bus turn around for MTM, to accommodate the larger buses that may be needed to bring in additional students from outside of the community, at a cost of $750,000. We are overwhelmed by this plan, for it proposes a major encroachment onto our school property, and represents a significant financial expense, for an ancillary school service that will only be utilized for a fraction of the school day. We can think of a number of uses for these funds that would better benefit the District, which is faced with significant budget deficits this year, and potentially into next year as well. What a waste of money! The experiment to develop a magnet school in Southeastern San Diego has been attempted on the Gompers footprint at least twice in recent history: Both attempts proved to be colossal failures for neighborhood children. Those educational failures for the children and families of Chollas View contributed to the creation of Gompers Charter and a half dozen other recently chartered schools in your district. We propose that Hilltop Drive continue to be used as the drop off and pick-up location for MTM. MTM students would only have to walk a half block to school from the drop off location. Hilltop Drive to the south of MTM campus has been the "bus station" for decades for hundreds of children bused into the area. Why is it necessary to encroach on Gompers’ campus to provide curbside service for the 70% non-neighborhood students who will attend the magnet school? It is just as safe to drop off on Hilltop and far less expensive. It is incomprehensible to me and the entire Gompers Board of Directors that you, as representative of District E of the San Diego Unified School District (arguably the poorest community in our region), would champion an encroachment effort that conspicuously benefits children bused into the Chollas View neighborhood from more affluent surroundings, at the expense of the 850+ neighborhood children who will attend Gompers Charter. Over the past four years, the students of Gompers have met the challenge of our partnership with the University of California San Diego and the expectations of Chollas View families. Academic Performance Index (API) scores have risen from 540 to 628, suspensions and expulsions have decreased by more than 80%, student and teacher attendance rates have greatly increased, and parents are becoming increasingly more involved in our school and committed to their students’ academic success. The mission of Gompers Charter Middle School, in partnership with University of California, San Diego & our community, is to accelerate academic achievement for ALL students through a college preparatory culture & curriculum. We have presented to your staff a rendering of our vision and plans for a new academic building, baseball field, gym, parking, and lunch pavilion for our students (enclosed). These plans provide for joint use of athletic facilities by MTM and Gompers. We informed District staff that these plans were crafted by the same prize- winning architect who designed Preuss School UCSD. When asked if you and the Board of Education plan to support the needs of our school’s growth, consistent with the requirements of providing a quality physical environment equal to other high schools in the District, you said "NO." You indicated that you preferred to expand the benefits for the 70% of the MTM enrollees coming from outside of the Chollas View neighborhood, rather than supporting our plans to improve the facilities of the expanding vision of Gompers, as it grows into grades 6-12 in the coming years. We were recently informed that SDUSD planned to begin construction of multiple bungalows on Gompers’ playing field during the school year, which would have prevented the use of the field by our students for the last several weeks of school. Construction was postponed due to protest from our board. However, the plan still remains to encroach onto the Gompers’ field starting this summer, to begin the proposed expansion construction for MTM. As you can see from the enclosed drawings, Gompers’ property, guaranteed to us by the SDUSD Trustees’ acceptance of Proposition 39 Facilities Use Agreements, would be taken in this effort and, thus, would deny our students adequate field space for our soccer, baseball and track teams to prepare for competition. As it is, our students are forced to play on a decomposed granite field that has been neglected for years by the District. Our track team this year practiced for meets by running on rocks and dirt. Even this area will be lost for our use with the MTM bungalows being installed. We are insisting that an alternate plan be utilized to meet MTM needs while upgrading our existing field as outlined on the enclosed drawings. The parents, teachers, community, and leadership of Gompers intend to vigorously and publicly oppose any attempt to encroach upon the property of Gompers. There is another way. We still hope that moderate and progressive voices among the SDUSD Board and local political leaders will assist you in entering into constructive dialogue with our Board of Trustees about what is the best educational interest of the children and families of District E. We stand ready to collaborate with your office in making the Gompers and Millennial Technical Middle School campuses world-class facilities that match their world-class educational agendas. Sincerely, Cecil H. Steppe Chair, Board of Directors, Gompers Charter cc: Trustees, SDUSD Dr. Terry Grier, Superintendent SDUSD Honorable Anthony Young, 4th District San Diego City Council Honorable Ron Roberts, San Diego County Board of Supervisors Dr. Randy Ward, Superintendent San Diego County Schools Honorable Jerry Sanders, Mayor, San Diego, California Bonnie Dumanis, District Attorney Christine Kehoe, California State Senator Marty Block, California Assemblyman John Warren, Editor, Voice & Viewpoint Bob Kittle, Editorial Board, SD Union-Tribune Emily Alpert, Voice of San Diego Marty Levine, Anchor, Channel 7 News Gloria Penner, Director of Public Affairs, KPBS J.W. August, Managing Editor, Channel 10 News Lei-Chala Wilson, esq., NAACP, San Diego Chapter Michelle Soltero, Chair, The Chicano Federation of San Diego County Linda Tu, President, San Diego Alliance for Asian, Pacific Islander Americans Ray King, President & CEO, Urban League, San Diego County Ron Cummings, Jacobs Foundation Jack O’Connell, California State Superintendent .

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