In short,

1.  Because the high school will be built on UCR property, UCR is the sole owner of the building with a lease agreement for 50 yrs with the option of two 10 year extensions, if agreed upon.

At a community meeting, a district manager stated that in 50 years the STEM building will be obsolete and will probably be demolished. Many of our schools in the district are over 50 yrs old-Highgrove is over 130 years old. Fremont over 100 years old,  Ramona nearly 65 years old, Poly and North High School are over 50 years old, schools that are fully operational today.  When the lease ends, the building belongs to UCR.

2.  RUSD is solely responsible for all expenses, including:

• design and construction.
• purchasing of land rights owned by the city of Riverside
• relocating all cell towers on the property.
• paying for the fiber cables for UCR baseball field
• environmental impact study ($300,000).
• costs of resolving all issues found in the environmental impact study.
• daily maintenance and upkeep.

3.  RUSD has racked up more than $1M dollars of billable hrs from UCR thus far.  This amount will continue to grow as UCR bills RUSD for any time spent by UCR employees working on this project.

4.  UCR assumes no liability in any future lawsuits.

5.  UCR to have access to the building with no charge for classrooms and labs.

6.  40 slots are guaranteed for UCR professors at this high school (total of 80 students including students at the STEM Academy).  These students are not required to live in the district, thus parents will not pay property tax, along with the other 300 students the district is allowing in who reside outside the district paying no property tax.

The Measure O property tax we voted for was to help remodel and renovate our needy schools, which is now going towards building UCR a new building at no cost to UCR,  RUSD allocates $32M of Measure O  funds and continues to rack up millions of dollars of additional fees.  RUSD will spend millions of dollars for yearly routine operational costs when the district’s student enrollment continues to decrease, costing RUSD millions of dollars in lost revenue each year.

It is truly disappointing that Trustees Allavie, Farooq and Lee with their strong ties to UCR continue to push this project to promote their own personal and political interests with our money.

This new STEM High School at UCR is not a comprehensive high school where students attend based on their address.  A comprehensive high school must accept any student who walks in to register.

This STEM High School is a specialized school where only students who meet certain high academic standards will be allowed in.

Instead of investing in our current high schools as a priority, the school board has made it clear in several board meetings that the STEM High School at UCR is their #1 priority.  The board sees no problem spending millions and millions of dollars to build a state of the art school in technology and innovation and infuse it with only the brightest students.

None of our high schools can compete with that. The board has turned its back on the thousands of students in the district who must sit everyday in deplorable classrooms and portables.

Case in point.    STEM High School at UCR will be less than a mile from North High School.  Why didn’t the board consider North High School as a STEM school?  Because the school board knows North High is not marketable in bringing students in from outside the district.

As we know, North High is in an industrial area on the Eastside, not surrounded by beautiful homes and landscaped yards, thus certainly not appealing when you drive around the school.  And when you walk the campus and see how deplorable the conditions are and how unappealing it looks, the board knows newcomers will go elsewhere.

We cannot change the location of North High nor should North High have to look like the depressed areas that surrounds it. The school board has the power to transform North’s campus appeal that can be stunning in its beauty.  Perhaps this is just reminiscent of a school board member back during Measure B when discussing North’s stadium referenced that poor kids don’t know how to take care of good things.

Instead of investing all of Measure O to renovate and beautify our schools of 40,000 students, this board’s #1 priority is to spend millions and millions of our dollars to cater to a select group of privileged students who many will not pay property tax.

The school board will once again be asking us to vote to increase our property tax to “supposedly” renovate and modernize our schools.  We need to remind the board that siphoning off millions of dollars to fund UCR a new building was not appreciated and will vote NO on any local school bond or state school bond measure as long as they continue to pursue this project.

It is time to elect new board members that have our 40,000 students as their 1st priority, not for a selected few.

Will keep you posted.

This From Yolanda Esquivel who is voicing the concerns of parents in the Eastside

it is imperative that all of us continue to plan, organize and be ready for the October 7th RUSD Board Meeting. I will continue to send you information provided to us by LULAC members Rich Davis and Mary Figueroa.