PVUSD asking voters to support Measure M to improve school facilities

In a tiny, cramped classroom on Pajaro Valley High School’s sprawling campus on Tuesday, a group of students was taking turns on a makeshift stage expressing various emotions and personalities as dictated by their drama teacher.

One by one, the students met their challenges to the applause of their classmates, ranging from emotional to miserable to melodramatic to giggling.

But there is one emotion that none of them—or any of their fellow students—need to feign: frustration at the lack of a performing arts center, an asset their peers at Watsonville and Aptos high schools have long enjoyed.

That could change on Nov. 5 if voters approve Measure M, a $315 million general obligation bond that would fund construction and renovation projects at all of the district’s schools.

Pajaro Valley Unified School District Superintendent Heather Contreras, who has spearheaded an ongoing series of student-led superintendent advisory councils, said she hears those concerns whenever she visits PVHS. 

“They feel really deeply that they don’t have what other high schools have,” she said.

The district is ready to move forward with a feasibility for the performing arts center if the measure garners the required simple majority vote. That $78,000 study would be paid for with developer fees.

If passed, Measure  M would raise $18.3 million annually by placing $60 per $100,000 of assessed value on properties within the district.

Other projects throughout PVUSD include new roofs and plumbing and expanded career and technical education programs including robotics and coding.

The measure comes during a presidential election, which typically draws more voters and gives such issues a greater chance of passing. 

But it also comes just after the March election, when voters approved Measure N,  a bond that is funding several projects at Watsonville Community Hospital by placing $24 per $100,000 of assessed value on properties within the Pajaro Valley Health Care District.

Contreras said that she understands voter reluctance to approve a measure that would raise taxes, particularly at a time when inflation is hurting many people.

Still, Contreras pointed to studies connecting student academic performance to the quality of their schools’ facilities. And with an estimated $1.2 billion in unmet maintenance needs, the need is enormous, she said.

“What I’m telling people is that one, the taxable amount is on the assessed property value, and not the market value, so I think people’s property taxes would be less than what they might assume,” she said. 

PVHS Principal Todd Wilson  said that the school’s plays are put on in the wrestling room, a slightly larger space than the drama room that also holds both rolled-up wrestling mats and the smells of high school athletics. In addition, Students who want to use a pool must travel to Watsonville High School.

The lack of those facilities has in many ways stunted the school’s growth, he said.

“We make it work and we do a phenomenal job; we have great people in place, but having that performing arts center is going to be all the difference in the world,” Wilson said.

For information on Measure M, click here or visit bit.ly/47ZBQxk.