WATSONVILLE—The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Wednesday approved two proposals that will allow the district to fast-track the hiring of three companies to clean and sanitize school property as a way to combat COVID-19, also known as coronavirus.
The trustees also agreed to extend the school closures – which were set to expire on March 27 – through May 5.
That date is likely to be extended. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said the closures could last through the summer, and K-12 schools, along with colleges and universities throughout the U.S., are planning to give their students online lessons for the rest of the year.
Normally, the district is required by law to put large-scale projects out to public bid, a process that can take as long as 45 days.
But after the trustees on March 14 directed PVUSD Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez to outsource the districtwide cleaning to a professional company – and with the reopening of the schools before the end of the school year still a distant possibility – that timeline was not workable.
“This allows us to not go through the informal bid process because of the emergency situation we are in,” PVUSD Chief Business Officer Joe Dominguez said.
The decision will allow the district to purchase supplies, equipment and non-construction services up to $95,200. PVUSD has already paid a company $83,000 to clean 15,000 Chromebook laptop computers, Dominguez said.
The district is hoping that all sites will be cleaned by April 6, which is estimated at $400,000-$600,000.
The item passed 6-1, with Trustee Georgia Acosta dissenting.
Acosta expressed concern about the removal of the bidding process, calling it “a carte blanche blank check” for the district to make its own decisions outside the purview of the elected board.
“For very specific reasons our democratic systems have checks and balances in place,” she said.
That, Acosta said, is the responsibility of the district’s governing board.
“I am not seeing an immediate need to take these decisions out of the hands of the board and placing it in the administration,” she said.
But Rodriguez said the proposal was necessary to meet the requirements set forth by the trustees, including hiring professional cleaning crews instead of using district workers.
“This is a direct result of the board’s directive to me about a week and a half ago,” she said.
Trustee Kim DeSerpa said she supported temporarily shifting the decision to hire the companies and make the expenditures.
“I think we have an excellent CBO, and I think we have an excellent superintendent, and I think they are more than qualified to make decisions for this district,” she said.
Acosta called for an amendment limiting the six-month timeline for the proposals to 30 days, which the board also approved.
The Trustees also approved a proposal to immediately hire three companies – Advance Cleaning 365, Unified Building Maintenance and Disaster Kleenup Specialists – to do the work.
Rodriguez, Board President Daniel Dodge Jr. and Vice-President Jennifer Holm were the lone in-person attendees. The rest of the board phoned in via teleconference.
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In other action, the trustees approved an offer of classroom space for PVUSD’s newest charter school.
Under a state law known as Proposition 39, school districts are required to provide space for charter schools located within their boundaries.
Watsonville Prep opened in 2019 with 180 students in K-2. After making their Prop 39 demand, the school was given seven portable classrooms at E.A. Hall Middle School.
The school plans to add one grade per year until it has an eighth grade. Its charter calls for a total of 420 students when fully operational in 2023.
Navigator Schools, which runs the charter, predicts a total of 237 students for next year, a number that exceeds the space at E.A. Hall.
PVUSD has therefore offered seven classrooms at Ann Soldo Elementary School, which would among other things take the school’s after-school space.
Watsonville Prep was hoping to expand at E.A. Hall, but the additional classrooms would take a large portion of the school’s playground, Dominguez said.
The increased students would also mean more traffic, in addition to impacts to the cafeteria, he said.
With the loss of Average Daily Attendance funding and the construction costs preparing E.A. Hall, the charter has already cost the district about $2 million, Rodriguez said.
That number is expected to rise to a $4 million loss per year if the school is still making Prop 39 demands when it is fully operational.
The offer must be sent to Navigator by April 1.
