As community members, we have a right to be a part of decisions that impact the local area, the development, the education, and the environment.

​

September 2024: Poway Unified School District (PUSD) has engaged a Real Estate Advisory Committee (RPAC, aka "7-11" committee) to evaluate three land parcels to be designated as surplus to education. The last meeting takes place December 4th, 2024 where the committee will vote. Details of the PUSD RPAC committee here.

​

ACTION NEEDED BY DEC 3, 2024: Submit a public comment by Dec 4th to the RPAC Committee about what you as a community member want from this land.

Sample Letters are here (corrected), email PUSD lead Rhea ralschbach@powayusd.com and cc ProtectOurCommunityNow@gmail.com

**Ensure you write in your email / title that the email is a public comment**

​

Key Points You Can Include:

• Current 7-year projections are too short-term for land decisions

• San Diego's projected population growth of +850,000 (source)

• Property values benefit from planned educational facilities

• Competition requires investment for modern, sustainable educational facilities

• Once sold, land becomes prohibitively expensive to reacquire

• Consider innovative educational uses for current assets

• The revenue from this land will not make even a small dent in the $1.8BN facilities plan for the district schools (PUSD facilities plan, page 3). The 6 middle schools each have $45M to $62M of capital investments alone. 

​

Examples of financial alternatives:

• Optimize existing school boundaries for better capacity utilization

• Develop optional enrollment schools and innovative learning environments like Design39

• Close poor conditions schools to reduce maintenance overheads

• Close / sell schools with highest available capacity (5 schools at 40%+) to fund investments

• Explore public-private partnerships for new facilities

  • Maryland district built 6 schools in 3 years with private partnership (source)

• Consider integrated public community spaces (libraries, agricultural programs)

  • High school built integrated with public library, 1st in nation, in San Diego (source)​

• Follow Best in Class Indiana Public Schools that collaborated with their community to create a "Rebuilding Stronger" initiative that had 8 different elements together from over 50 community meetings and 2,000 comments. 

​

​

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

​

Great News! - Costco Deal Ended

​

March 2021: Thanks to this community, Poway Unified School District (PUSD) and Costco mutually agreed to end negotiations for a 40-year lease on land in our community. Read the press release.

 

Want to learn the timeline and who, what, how and why? Read our detailed FAQ here.  

​

​

​