Gompers Charter supporters rally to save campus space, sports field

It doesn’t look like much — it’s a square, dirt field lined with gravel and chalk. But, for students at Gompers Charter Middle School and Gompers Preparatory Academy every inch of it is worth fighting for because it’s their sports field.

Students, parents and teachers gathered Wednesday to protest San Diego Unified School District’s plan to install bungalows for Millenial Tech Magnet School on Gompers’ sports field. They also plan to install a bus turnaround in an area adjacent to the field. The school board has not yet voted on the bus drop-off zone.

Approximately 200 protesters spoke out against the plans, including members of Gompers’ board of directors and school administrators.

“Enough is enough. We’re not willing to compromise another inch,” said Cecil H. Steppe, chair of Gompers’ board of directors. “If we have to stand and lay in front of the bulldozers when they arrive, I’ll be the first one there.”

But during their protest, bulldozers were already on site removing weeds and clearing the path for the new project.

There are two projects on Gompers campus — one is already in the works. The project in the works is the installation of bungalows. The bungalows will provide additional classrooms for Millenial Tech Magnet Middle School, a district school sitting on property adjacent to the charter school. The classrooms will utilize about 14 percent of the back-end of the field if installed. Deputy Superintendent Chuck Morris said the outside classrooms will be on the sports field temporarily until a permanent building is erected.

“It’s like a landlord that just decides to sublet a room without telling you,” said Gompers chief of staff Jenny Parsons.

An additional proposal, which will cost roughly $750,000, is to install a bus turnaround on property leased to Gompers by SDUSD. The bus turnaround will serve as a drop-off zone for Millenial Tech. Gompers school officials worry the bus drop-off schedule will disrupt education because the MTM busses will arrive during Gompers’ morning classes. Currently, Millenial Tech students are dropped off about half a block away from their campus. They walk across a field to get to the school, which raises safety concerns among parents, Parsons said.

The new bus drop-off proposal has not yet appeared on the board agenda for an action vote, but Morris said the board already approved additional school facilities like bungalows with the passage of Proposition S in November 2008.

“We’re going to be able to come to a solution on this in a way that allows both schools to have the space they need,” said schoolboard member Richard Barrera. “There’s really well-motivated people involved with both schools and there’s a lot of space on that site. I think we should be able to figure this out.”

Deputy Superintendent Chuck Morris said placing the bungalows on the sports field isn’t an option.

Read: Marsha Sutton: Gompers protest over school district’s latest scheme

“The bungalows aren’t a proposal, they are a necessity,” Morris said. “It’s a necessity to meet the needs of the students who will be enrolling this fall. It really isn’t an option.”

Morris said MTM anticipates an additional 200 incoming students next fall and another 200 the following year. Gompers currently enrolls 710 students and has 850 projected students enrolling in the fall.

Gompers students play baseball, softball and soccer on the 200,076 square-foot sports field. Also students run laps daily around the circumference of the field to meet physical education requirements. If plans for the new bungalows are carried out, Gompers students will lose approximately 30,000 square feet of playing area.

Parsons said this will impact their ability to have a regulation soccer field and a track.
Officials at Gompers have asked the Board of Education to consider installing the extra buildings on MTM’s west campus and sharing the sports field.

Gompers’ board of directors initially wanted to use the land where the district hopes to install a bus drop-off area to provide an additional lunch area for their high school students and already ordered lunch tables and equipment to install the lunch zone, Parsons said.

Gompers’ lease with SDUSD for the campus property began today and will end on June 30 next year.

SDUSD rents the campus property to Gompers at a rate of $1 per square feet of classroom space, but no terms exist for the cost of square foot per land, Parsons said.
Board of Education President Sheila Jackson, a former teacher, did not return several requests for an interview. But she did tell VoiceofSanDiego.org, that the project won’t interrupt the school’s physical education program.

Gompers’ administrators don’t buy her statements though. They claim Jackson has been against the school from the get-go because it does not have a teacher’s union.

“She’s trying to close down the school,” said director of development Kathryn Strom. “She’s trying to take it away for vindictive reasons.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Education, Environment, Local News, Politics & Government . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.