San Diego Unified's maintenance practices are embarrassing, according to a new, external audit, presented March, 2007, to the Board of Ed, who ordered it.
 
This is the result of a new San Diego School Board that cares more about student health and ordered an audit of maintenance practices in San Diego Unified. Three of the board members are former teachers who care about the students, and one is a parent activist. A lesson in electing people who care and have a background to understand the issues to the local boards.

Read on for the published March 15, 2007 Letters to the Editor>>

View article on the San Diego Union-Tribune Web Site >>

City school district's maintenance problems
Regarding “Embarrassing/Schools' maintenance unit excels in disorder” (Editorial, March 9):

Maintenance at San Diego Unified School District is more than embarrassing, it is dangerously neglectful. As a teacher for 25 years in the district, I can tell you about disorderly, poorly maintained facilities. I can tell you about both wealthy and poor neighborhoods, where it rained inside when it rained outside. I can tell you about most custodians who did their level best to do the work of five people, and barely had time to empty trash cans every other day.

The system was dysfunctional, and not at the lower end, but at the upper. No emphasis at the top level, especially by superintendents and managers, was put on the safety of the students or staff when it came to filth and debris in heating and ventilating systems.

I commend the school board for pursuing some of the reasons for the dangerous conditions of its unkempt schools. This is not the fault of the rank and file, but of policies that still do not reflect a respect for health. The Center for School Mold Help, a nonprofit I created to inform the public about mold in schools, chronicles these problems and more at www.schoolmoldhelp.org.

SUSAN BRINCHMAN
San Diego

Orginial Article Referenced

Schools' maintenance unit excels in disorder

March 9, 2007

According to the consultant, The Portolan Group, those decades of experience and $131 million a year in taxpayers' money have produced:

A maintenance division that does not know what hours its employees work or what they did for however many hours they did it. This lunacy alone should persuade most San Diegans of the need for drastic change. But there's plenty more.

The number of custodians in the district at any given time is anybody's guess.

Because custodians are managed by individual schools or the district's central office, the amount spent on custodial services varies from school to school and the quality from clean to filthy.

Money for maintenance is spread across too many district budgets to effectively track expenditures.

The division charges its school customers an overhead charge of 93 percent, billing $1,930 for a job that costs $1,000 in labor and materials.

Despite practically doubling its charges, the maintenance and operations division for years has run out of money – by $15 million to $18 million annually.

No MBA required to marvel at this disorder, and at maintenance and operations director Bill Dos Santos' excuses. The dollar figures are wrong, says the director of the division, which has overrun its annual budget for years. His staff, he says, has been planning for some time to buy a decent computerized financial system. With what money?

Fortunately, a school board majority has not only accepted the report from The Portolan Group, it is enlisting Portolan to help with the actual reorganization.

Several years ago when the budget-strapped district pared maintenance crews, parents watched as some San Diego schools became blighted by weeds and dead grass. They chafed at union rules that prevented parents from regularly pulling the weeds and mowing the grass. Based on genuine oversight of finances and performance, the reorganization plan promises more custodial and landscaping services, performed to a systemwide standard at specified times and places, and at the same cost to taxpayers.