CUSD Update
Editorial staff

One of the worst examples of mismanagement in CUSD isn’t an old building like Newhart with too many students. It’s the brand-new, $140-million-plus, state-of-the-art high school in San Juan Capistrano, due to open Sept. 4.

San Juan Hills High School – referred to as “dump high school” – is built next to a methane-belching dump. The school is barely ready to open, and the road to the school is still under construction. According to some CUSD parents, the district hasn’t completed the required Environmental Impact Report’s safety measures, and the school is opening in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.

If that sounds like someone is overreacting, here are a few specifics:

1) The high school is beneath high-tension transmission lines, requiring steel plates in some sections of the building. Athletic fields are “classrooms” directly under the lines.

2) Dump high is a few hundred yards from a dump that accepted hazardous waste long before the use of liners to prevent leakage into the soil and groundwater, which geological maps show to run under the school. The dump has a methane collection station, and methane burns from a flare when it isn’t being collected.

3) The only road to the school was never meant for public use. Students will share the road with multi-ton trash trucks.

4) The developer who graded the parcel filled its canyons with up to 130 feet of fill. As an aside, the district (taxpayers) paid the developer to grade his land as well, “to bring in fill dirt.” He graded almost exactly the number of acres he needed for his residential development. What a coincidence.

5) Dump high school is across the street from a green waste facility that burns refuse. Homeowners near the site say they keep their windows closed to avoid breathing the smoke when the waste is burning.

6) Large tanker trucks filled with liquefied natural gas travel through the La Pata/Antonio intersection to reach the Solag Disposal site, where Solag’s trucks are fueled (just past the dump school turnoff). The trucks are a risk in themselves, in an area where CUSD officials ignore the hazards of trash-hauler traffic and heavy traffic on Ortega. Beginning Sept. 4, add to the mix 600 students starting the school year at dump high.

CUSD had to indemnify several agencies in order to get the approval to build a school on this site, possibly bypassing state and federal safety measures. This sounds reminiscent of the Belmont Learning Center in Los Angeles, which cost $200 million and was never opened.

Last week, the principal of dump high school sent a message to parents and students, canceling registration at the last minute because of the snafu over the unfinished road.. He said the first day of school next week would be “thrilling.” What about safe?

The road to the school is steep and dangerous in some places, with the need for pilot cars to escort vehicles until it’s finished. The district stated the pilot cars would be eliminated if traffic starts backing up. The OC Register released an article on Aug. 29 that looked more like a puff-piece press release from the school district than a news report. In a district that has demonstrated a pattern of cutting corners, misrepresenting facts and breaking the law, news should be covered by investigative reporting.

The release of information in the OC Register last week focused on road issues, causing one parent to remark, “The story is about the road – something obvious everyone can see – to divert attention from the real problems of this school.”

A Mission Viejo resident had another take on the story about the unfinished road and trash trucks traversing a still-active construction zone: “These people must get their traffic expertise from the same folks that handle Mission Viejo traffic planning. Perhaps they need Roger Faubel to provide them some public relations material to ‘paper over the matter.’”