In June 2016 the Hermosa Beach City School District (HBCSD) school board members passed Measure S, the district's $59M facilities bond to completely demolish and rebuild the grandfathered-in, seismically safe, iconic North School and to enlarge View School in response to a TEMPORARY overcrowding problem.

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In order to pass their bond, HBCSD school board members and Superintendent Pat Escalante, with the assistance from HBCSD Attorney Terry Tao, Hermosa Beach City Attorney Michael Jenkins, and Hermosa Beach City Manager Tom Bakaly, various consultants and City Council members continually mislead the community about the facts of the district’s facility options.   

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This website addresses the intentional misinformation provided to Hermosa Beach residents from 2002 to 2019 by our community leaders:

 

1.  Misinformation was provided to Hermosa Beach residents regarding the grandfathered-in, seismically safe and iconic North School’s (renamed Vista School) condition, safety, appropriateness to be used as is for students, historical value and cost to renovate. 

 

2.  Misinformation was also provided to residents regarding HBCSD’s priority leasing agreement with the City of Hermosa Beach for use of the Community Center classrooms, office space and storage space.   Misinformation was also provided by HBCSD regarding the condition, safety, appropriateness and cost to upgrade the Community Center for students.

 

3.  School Board members hired an unqualified former principal, Pat Escalante, to be HBCSD Superintendent from 2012 to 2020.  The formally unemployed Pat Escalante was paid very well for her services as district superintendent.  School board members continued to support Pat Escalante even after being given proof of her  abundant misinformation to the community in order to pass the district's $59M bond.  Instead of publically repremanding Superintendent Escalante, school board members claimed that Pat Escalante had been honored by the Creative Coalition (an arts and entertainment advocacy orgainzation) and seemingly paid for her multi-day, all expense trip to Park City, Utah in 2017.   School board members continued to support Pat Escalante's misinformation to the community by also nominated her for Superintendent of the Year in 2019.

 

4.  Misleading information was provided to Hermosa Beach residents regarding HBCSD projected enrollment.  Less than six months after the district's bond was passed in June 2016, the district's enrollment consultants changed their projections from one of imminent increased enrollment to one of markedly lower future enrollment.

 

5.  Misinformation was provided by Superintendent Pat Escalante (with school board members present) regarding the need to move 149 3rd grade students from Valley School to View School in 2015.  This decision severely overcrowded View School and panicked parents and staff less than one-year before the district’s 2016 $59M bond vote.  

 

6.  HBCSD school board members used taxpayer funds to hire consultants and professionals to help pass the district’s $59M bond.  The consultants and professionals included a social media company, a historical resource assessment and traffic conditions assessment.  Both the historical resource assessment and traffic study contained multiple provably untrue statements and highly questionable methods and results.

 

7.  Proof of collusion and coordination between School Board members and Superintendent Pat Escalante, Political Consultant Larry Fox, Yes on S campaign chairman Michael Collins (husband of HBCD School Board President and City Council member Mary Campbell), Isom Advisors to provide an unfair advantage to the Yes on S campaign.  Including a one hour presentation by HBCSD attorney, Terry Tao, that was filled with misinformation and misleading information that was embedded in the district's website less than one week before the bond vote.

 

8.  HBCSD provided misinformation and withheld correct information on their district website paid for by taxpayer funds.

 

9.  Egregious amounts of misinformation and misleading information provided in the official Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for North School.   Nevertheless, HBCSD school board members accepted the misinformation and approved the district's Environmental Impact Report that was given to the Coastal Commission in 2019.

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THE TIMELINE:

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From 2002 HBCSD school board members ignored the district's Facility Master Plan which recommended that HBCSD supply 13 additional classrooms by 2012 to accomodate projections of rising enrollment.  Instead, school board members built a low priority, $11M dollar gymnasium complex with the $13.6M Measure J facilities bond.   All the while HBCSD had FREE priority use of the gymnasium, changing rooms and tennis courts only two blocks from Valley School.  School board members spent approximately $1 million dollars from district coffers by 2009  in order to finish paying for the $11M gymnasium.   The additional $1 million dollars taken from district coffers in 2009 left HBCSD in weaker position from which to navigated the Great Recession from 2008 to 2012.

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From 2002 to 2019 school board members ignored and misled the community about the facts surrounding district priority lease agreement for use of the Community Center gymnasium, changing rooms, classrooms, office and storage space for students.  

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From 2010 to 2013 HBCSD school board members took no action to relieve overcrowding.   School Board members had the option of using either the grandfathered-in, seismically safe North School OR the district’s priority lease agreement to use classrooms, office and storage facilities at the Pier Avenue Community Center to immediately relieve district overcrowding.   Instead school board members forced students and staff to contend with extremely overcrowded conditions on district campuses.

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From 2014-2015 HBCSD spent $1.3M on short-term overcrowding “solutions” that did nothing to relieve overcrowding at district campuses.  The $1.3M spent on short-term overcrowding solutions did not go to improve a lasting community asset such as North School or the Community Center.

 

From 2014-2015 HBCSD hired enrollment consultants inflated future enrollment projections and ignored official California Department of Finance projections of declining K-8 populations in all coastal communities.  HBCSD School Board members also voted to unnecessarily move 149 3rd grade students from Valley School to View School, overwhelming the already overcrowded TK-2nd grade campus and panicking parents and staff one year before the district’s $59M bond vote.

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As of June 30, 2015 HBCSD school board members had withheld up to 25.5% (approximately $3M) of district funds from being spent on students, teachers, educational materials and classrooms.  

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​It is believed, and supported by the facts, that the failure of school board members to use the Community Center or immediately use the grandfathered-in North School was the result of an unofficial quid pro quo between HBCSD and the City of Hermosa Beach.  It is believed that the quid pro quo was hatched by an influential clique of Hermosans to keep the Community Center exclusively for city use.  The quid pro quo consisted of HBCSD denying and ignoring it's lease agreement for use of the Community Center in return for the city’s help in passing a $59M dollar facilities bond to build a brand-new, now unneeded, campus at North School.  Building the now unneeded brand-new campus took five years and cost taxpayers $29M while district students and staff languished in unacceptably overcrowded conditions. 

 

As of 2023 HBCSD has space for 1,902 students and a Hermosa Beach student population of 1,165 students.  HBCSD has started bringing in students from outside Hermosa Beach to bolster district enrollment.  However, HBCSD still has approximately 20 to 22 unused or underused classroom capacity that may NEVER be used.  According to the California Department of Finance Demographics unit, K-12 enrollment is projected to continue to decrease through at least 2060.

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