$578M L.A. school a national shocker

Criminal
Educators keep asking for more money to educate the kids then the build this type of school. As long as this type of abuse is happening they will never get a vote or any support form me.
LAUSD should be eliminated and the leadership jailed.

We're closing a Hazmat unit in the San Fernando Valley because they can't find $50,000 to keep it staffed for one additional year...but we can spend $578 MILLION to make kids feel better? Give me a break.

"The RFK complex follows on the heels of two other L.A. schools among the nation's costliest - the $377 million Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, which opened in 2008, and the $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School that debuted in 2009."

Have you already forgotten about the Belmont "Learning Center" ?

With the methane-mitigation included, it was reputed to cost ~$700 million.

CSM wrote:

We're closing a Hazmat unit in the San Fernando Valley because they can't find $50,000 to keep it staffed for one additional year...but we can spend $578 MILLION to make kids feel better? Give me a break.

When will you people understand that the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District are two completely separate entities (that is, they operate two separate, individual budgets)?!?

Uh, Why are they building new schools in old neighborhoods?

I see one is going up between Kennedy and Granada, that neighborhood is like 50 years old.
Pacoima has a new one, that neighborhood is even older.
And, didn't I see a new school going up right next door to Van Nuys?

What ever happened to 'brick and mortar' buildings?
It was good enough in the 50's and 60's, why not now?
Insane spending. They should all be tarred and feathered. Right? Uncle Remus?

Well that'll sure drive up the pers student cost for LAUSD.

Think about it, taxpayers are paying about $7,000.00 per year, per student, just for the school.(the cost of bonds to build the school, interest and principal).

Why are they even building schools at that price, when they could rent buildings for far less?

This is where the electorate is at fault for approving bond measure after bond measure. And they will keep doing it until there will be facilities with no students or staff to fill them. But at least they will have architectural masterpieces.

"The extravagance has led some to wonder where the line should be drawn and whether more money should be spent on teachers."

Why is that the only two options? Why not spend less? No, that is never an option.

People are being misled when they read statements like they(the new schools) "do not affect the education budget". Yes, the funds for these schools come from a different source, but we, the public, are paying for it all whether through income taxes, property taxes or bonds. There is a limit to how much the average person can afford to fork over for these exorbitant expenditures. We all have only so much disposable income before these extra taxes start to affect our quality of life and our ability to pay our own bills. Then, when extra money is really needed such as in the present economic crisis, there isn't any to give.

Congratulations to the facilities division for convincing the LAUSD school boards in the past and in the present to show the public, and now the country(thanks to a spot on CNBC this morning), how little they care for the students they are responsible to educate. It looks more like they were influenced by those who stood to make a financial killing on all this construction. And please don't forget that the student population is decreasing.

Finally, LAUSD is approving charters left and right every year, which removes even more students from LAUSD. Even Ben Austin stated on KPCC that "we don't NEED charters". I assume he meant that they are not needed to relieve overcrowding.

This is a major crisis with LAUSD not promising to bring back the hundreds of teachers it riffed, leaving class sizes higher than ever. The public must demand to find out what LAUSD is planning to do with the money from the feds that is being distributed to bring these teachers back NOW, and not for anything else.

Every LAUSD parent and Los Angeles resident should call, email, organize etc., to demand that this money get right into the classroom, where it is needed the most. This article points up the real priorities in LAUSD and it's not the students. Otherwise, we would not have these embarrassingly expensive schools instead of supporting the basic needs of our students.

Concerned American wrote:

<quoted text>
When will you people understand that the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District are two completely separate entities (that is, they operate two separate, individual budgets)?!?

Still, there were no senior teachers and no senior class was available the first year the Eli Broad space junk school was open. The school was built to enrich the builders and the architect. The students were far from the most important consideration.

Only Lausd would be this stupid!

"...ARE FUNDED WITH $20 BILLION, IN VOTER APPROVED BONDS...."
When are the voters going to realize that when you vote to approve bonds, you are giving the crooked politicans and incompetent bureaucrats a blank check to give away your money? These are the same deceitful, incompetents that have bankrupted this City and totally devastated our schools. All those schools that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars were built with bond money that foolish, trusting voters approved. Since the bungling politicans have bankrupted your cities, thats the only money they have left to squander.

Sue wrote:

People are being misled when they read statements like they(the new schools) "do not affect the education budget". Yes, the funds for these schools come from a different source, but we, the public, are paying for it all whether through income taxes, property taxes or bonds.

It's true, they do not effect the "educational budet", and that's part of the problem.

LAUSD doesn't count things like the cost of the schools,(or their pensions), when they report what it costs for them to operate. That's why they claim it only costs them about $10K per student per year.

It actually costs taxpayers more like $25K per student per year but they don't want to talk about it.

Think about the numbers they just reported spending on this new schools, it will cost taxpayers about $137,000 per student, and the interest and prinicipal alone will cost us about $2.7 million dollars a year.

If you had to teach 20 kids and were given $2.7 million dollars a year, don't you think you could do much better than that?

If you gave that to me and all I gave the kids in return was a seat in a class, wouldn't you be p i s s e d?

Brilliant!

What a great place for the illegals to hang out and get their free breakfast and lunches. We're cutting back the school year for lack of funds but we can find the money to staff these monstrosities

Who in the LAUSD Board of Education voted to build this?

We need to get these bums out of office, like they did in the city of Bell.

WEll that is one way to SPEND too much money on something ? look more like an art building....kids need that way more than music or art or sports in the school ?

Never ever vote yes on bond issues! school districts and government agencies always play on the "sympathy" of the voter and bring out their "sob" stories on now the bond will help improve facilities and services and yet once they are complete and see the results, they are nothing but wasteful failures.

Elections have consequences, just look at the mess we are in because we wanted "change" in Washington and look at the city of Bell, only 400 residents voted on a city ballot initiative that opened the door to their salary abuses. Voters pay attention!!!

That's SO LA!

We've been shocking the nation wtih a lot of stuff lately:
1) highest paid government employees in the nation,
2) highest paid politicians in the nation,
3) most government bureaucracy in the nation,
4) many of highest taxes in the nation,
5) most illegal immigrants in the nation,
6) highest exodus of businesses in nation,
7) highest exodus of jobs in nation,
8) highest exodus of productive citizens in nation,
9) highest paid retired government employees in nation,
10) worst government in nation