A Silicon Valley school district that has lured teachers to the area by offering them subsidized housing and lavish perks is drawing ire for pricey purchases including a $2,500 swivel chair and an energy healer to do guided meditation with administrators at $1,200 per session.
Mountain View Whisman School District, like others across California, has had to get creative to help recruit and retain teachers. Officials have offered up low-cost housing in the San Francisco Bay Area city where most find it difficult to afford the high rents and mortgages in the neighborhoods they work.
Unfortunately, the project has created long-term fiscal headaches, and the rents proposed for teachers are still too high for their salaries.
The first residents started moving into the 144-unit apartment complex last month but the complaints have already started to pile up, with parents, staff members, and educators claiming the whole thing has been a waste of money in a district that is known for its abysmal fiscal oversight.
One parent described the housing project as a “big ball of a mess” to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Santa Clara County is in the middle of an audit by a state fiscal oversight agency digging into allegations that the county engaged in fraud, misappropriation of funds, or other illegal practices over the past few years.
The workforce housing project and its costs were front and center during a district meeting on Thursday. The apartment complex, which was funded by a voter-approved bond, has exceeded the $56 million budgeted for it, the paper reported.
A closer look at the project reveals that those in charge routinely “ignored best practices,” which included using surplus district property to build on and leveraging the development to bring in additional revenue, according to a 2021 study by the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Berkeley. Instead of cost-saving measures, Mountain View Whisman chose to build its housing as a new stand-alone structure in the middle of a high-end development project, leaving officials on the hook for maintenance on the property and a yearly $1.9 million land lease that will increase every year.
What is worse, parents complained, is that the housing complex has eaten up money earmarked for other school projects, including upgrades to the science and art labs and other classrooms.
“We signed up for modernizing our classrooms and housing for staff for $56 million,” a parent who asked for anonymity told the San Francisco Chronicle. “There are no science labs promised to us. Modernization of the classrooms didn’t happen.”
A new school board was sworn in in January and approved a contract for furnishing the common areas of the “teachers’” apartment building, which included $500 electric blue ergonomic desk chairs, $420 geometric side tables “inspired by origami techniques” to create “a simple yet sculptural form that is reminiscent of traditional Japanese paper art,” and a $4,000 hand-crafted steel console that features “natural markings and imperfections” to give it “a unique character that can only come from handcrafted design.”
Interim Superintendent Jeff Baier shifted the blame for the purchases on the previous school board and said the current board just voted to approve the contract.
“Our board made the decision that they wanted our below-market housing to have the look and feel of the comparable market-rate housing right next door,” he said. “The board doesn’t want the (residents) to feel like they are living in some sort of substandard housing.”
While Baier is worried about aesthetics, he seemed less concerned about the fact that the district was overbilled by several thousands of dollars for some of the high-end furnishings. District officials have said they will look into the billing errors after a reporter pointed them out.
Mohan Gurunathan, the parent of a child in the Mountain View Whisman School District, sees nothing but a fiscally mismanaged money pit that short-changes students.
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“Where are the school district’s priorities?” he asked in a guest opinion piece in Mountain View Voice. “When do we say enough is enough? It’s time to demand that MVWSD stop pouring money into this bottomless sinkhole.
“The district must develop an exit strategy that doesn’t waste more educational or taxpayer dollars. MVWSD needs to refocus on its core mission: providing a high-quality education for our children.”
