We want to dispel community misinformation that our group has sued MVSD and is to blame for project delays and cost escalations. That is incorrect. Our group of concerned parents has not filed any lawsuit.

The project is delayed because the District proposed a half-baked idea without adequate due diligence. The site is inherently problematic, and the District refuses to acknowledge the scope of the problem. State regulators have an obligation to keep our kids are safe. These subject matter experts are not yet satisfied with the environmental sampling of this sensitive site, which is still underway. That timing has nothing to do with us. You can see the recent data gaps that DTSC identified on our Soil Test Results page.

The District has spent millions on consultants but still doesn’t have a feasible proposal. We have repeatedly asked the District to reduce those expenditures to preserve bond funds until feasible plans are identified. We warned that soil mitigation for the original rebuild plan could cost $33M, not the mere ~$7M the District budgeted. They didn’t listen, and instead proceeded to draw up costly architectural plans for a rebuild that could never work. Our cost estimate was almost exactly correct—soil mitigation turned out to cost $32.4M, which rendered the project infeasible. As a consequence, the District has now spent a lot of money on unusable plans and an expensive 700+ page EIR about a project they already abandoned. It continues to spend money on detailed plans for the elementary schools, when it might need the money for the Middle School after all. Rather than systematically identifying threshold issues to address before spending significant amounts of money, the District has proceeded in a haphazard rush. Instead of scapegoating parents, the District must finally face the facts, take responsibility, and propose a workable solution.