HBCSD Corruption

Proof of the lie:

(1) North School is grandfathered-in as a campus which means it is CDE code compliant as is.

(2) Title 5 standards were adopted in 1993.  The CDE does not require that public schools built before 1993 go back and correct current Title 5 deficiencies.   If all school districts in California had to bring every campus to current Title 5 standards it would cost taxpayers billions, therefore the CDE Title 5 standards apply to new construction only. 

(3) North School was built to Field Act seismically safe specifications; therefore it also conforms to Title 5 standards for safety.  All major additions and structural changes have been overseen by the Division of State Architect and qualified licensed architects and structural engineers.   According to CDE rules North School is deemed to be structurally safe for students as is.

(4) Every architect and consultant that has worked with HBCSD has offered plans to renovate the North School campus.  Renovation estimates have been given by BCA Architects hired to advise the Facility Planning and Advisory Committee, the 2014 Facility Master Plan by GKK Works and Juge Construction, the company who rebuilt Valley School in 1987. If students could not be kept at North School without it being rebuilt (not renovated), why would architects give the district estimates to renovate the existing buildings and campus?  Please see Lie #17: Misinforming the public regarding HBCSD use of North School AS IS.

(5) Both Robinson School in Manhattan Beach and View School in Hermosa Beach were leased out to private preschools while their respective school districts had declining enrollment.  When enrollment started to climb, both schools were brought back to be used for public school students with only minimal improvements/renovations made.   Like North School, View School and Robinson School are grandfathered in for use by public school students. 

(6) A renovated North School would not require a lengthy and expensive Environmental Impact Report.  “A negative declaration may be used if the project is not expected to have one or more significant effects on the environment.”

(7) An initial study done on rebuilding North School in 2017 identified 48 items out of 83 total items, or 58% of the issues, as being Potentially Significant Impacts.

NOTE: Pat Escalante does not hold a Doctor of Education degree, nor did she have any prior experience or training as a superintendent.   School board members who hired her (Patti Ackerman, Jack Burns, Carleen Beste, Lisa Claypool, Ray Waters) should have been aware of her lack of qualifications to advise them of their options.  Please see Lie #20:  Misleading the public that Pat Escalante was well qualified to be a superintendent. Lie #21: Claiming that Pat Escalante was qualified to be superintendent and that SHE had decided to apply for the Superintendent position at HBCSD on her own.

NOTE: Former HBCSD Superintendent Dr. Bruce Newlin (2008-2011) had 30 years of experience as a superintendent for six different school districts with up to 14,000 students.  He presumably had had lots of experience with school facility decisions. Why didn’t HBCSD School Board members (Lance Widman, Greg Breen, Linda Beck, Cathy McCurdy, Jack Burns, Carleen Beste, Lisa Claypool) have former Superintendent Dr. Bruce Newlin (2008-2011) start the facilities process for HBCSD from at least 2009?

Please see Timeline: September 2008 - HBCSD hires supremely overqualified and formally retired superintendent Dr. Bruce Newlin as HBCSD’s interim superintendent.   

Why wait until Pat Escalante who had absolutely NO superintendent experience, was made superintendent in 2012 to start a process to examine district facilities?  By 2012 HBCSD had become unacceptably overcrowded.  Why not investigate options and make plans for expansion before being faced with a crisis?   Was the reason Dr. Newlin didn’t get involved with district facilities because Dr. Newlin cared about his reputation and didn’t want to be caught lying for the cabal?  Or was the reason school board members ignored overcrowding until it became a crisis, because the cabal was waiting for the overcrowding to become a crisis so they could use it to pressure the community into passing an unnecessarily expensive facilities bond?