Schools
SBUSD Board of Trustees Approve Earthquake Safety Analysis, Elect New President
Trustee David Lopez succeeds Chris Brown as president of the board of trustees. Board members also approved an $89,500 expenditure to have potentially unsafe buildings evaluated for earthquake safety.
The Board of Trustees voted 4-1 Thursday evening to approve funds to evaluate the school's potentially unsafe buildings in an earthquake.
Passed in 1999, Assembly Bill 300 requires that the Department of General Services conduct a survey of all K-12 buildings constructed before 1976 to evaluate their seismic safety. Currently the district has 98 buildings which are not expected to perform well, .
Last month the Board of Trustees approved sending out of a to find companies who wanted to carry out the safety studies for buildings and structures on the AB 300 list.
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Trustee Nick Inzunza said he wanted his opposition to the $89,500 expenditure clearly noted on the record.
“I feel like we’re just giving this money away for something that could be done locally with our city building inspectors,” he said.
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Assistant Superintendent Abby Saadat said that unfortunately, this was not something that could be avoided.
“These evaluations are required by law and unfortunately, half of the buildings in San Diego County belong to our district,” he said. “We need a qualified structural engineer to certify the buildings and the city inspectors do not have the same types of certifications as this type of engineer.”
Inzunza said he was still voting against it.
“I’m voting no now because I don’t like it,” he said.
The board also voted unanimously to make Trustee David Lopez their president. Lopez was elected to the Board of Trustees in 2008. This will mark his first term as board president.
Before he was sworn in, Superintendent Carol Parish took a moment to recognize Brown's nine-plus years of service to the district.
“Chris has served three times as clerk, three times as Vice President and just completed her second stint as President,” Parish said. “She has served with incredible dedication and for that we thank her.
Trustee Melanie Ellsworth was elected to succeed Lopez as Vice President. Chris Brown will replace Trustee Elvira Aguilar as board Clerk.
Once elections concluded, Lopez and the board heard a report about improving education at .
Principal Armando Lopez said that three-year trends among students showed greater proficiency and advanced scoring in language arts.
“Since the 2009-10 school year we have almost doubled the number of kids who qualify as proficient and advanced,” Lopez said. “For the 2010-11 school year we saw an increase of 10 percent.”
The next scheduled SBUSD school board meeting will take place Jan. 19 at 6 p.m.
