Deferred maintenance
Editor,
For 13 years, I knew that during every storm there would be a downpour of water into my classroom, that toxic mold would grow on my classroom walls, and the blatant lack of administrative concern over exposed electrical outlets and other facility dangers was deferred maintenance.
I also remember being coaxed by district staff to not show those problems when state and federal inspectors came through for inspections. The district’s idea of deferred maintenance is to ignore what needs to be handled now, and stick the taxpayers with the bill to fix or replace it later. That’s not good business, that’s mismanagement.
In 13 years as a teacher at PHS, I also remember seeing the superintendent take lobbying trips to places like Washington D.C. and board members go on countless multi-night trips to places like Palo Alto for informational studies about ConnectED.
You see that’s part of the problem that this district won’t tell anyone about the bond measure. Besides self-serving perks, the district’s prized Pathway initiative is too expensive to maintain with the state of the district infrastructure and facilities and is the real need of this bond.
In actuality, the district never had the capacity to take on such an expensive program, even with the millions of dollars it was supposed to bring. When agreement to be a Pathway district happened, a plan was to be developed for long-range sustainability of the Pathway initiative. But that plan was either never made public that it included a $90 million dollar bond, or it was hidden altogether.
Early in the Pathway program formation I raised these concerns, only to be reprimanded for asking questions. Many other teachers and Pathway teachers feel the exact same way, but won’t speak out because fear of retaliation that I have faced many times.
I know the state of facilities in this district is dire and a bond could certainly help, yet it should not go unnoticed that PUSD’s irresponsible behavior is what has caused this problem in the first place.
Why give PUSD more money to simply miss-manage? Maybe after a total change of all district leadership? One could only hope.
Issac Robles
Porterville
