If you build it, they will come

When she arrived in the district to take her first full-time teaching job at Pomeroy Elementary School five years ago, Katherine Watson liked everything about the Santa Clara Unified School District. Everything, that is, except the region's sky-high housing prices. "Three of us teachers shared a two-bedroom apartment," remembers Watson, a third-grade teacher. "We paid $1,000 each. Rent was eating up my paycheck."

Like those in the rest of the Golden State, housing prices in Santa Clara were approaching the stratosphere, with the average price of a single-family home at almost half a million dollars.

Watson was lucky compared to some of her colleagues: at least she found a place. "We had one new teacher, a mother of two, who camped on a Santa Cruz beach during her first few weeks on the job while she looked for an apartment she could afford," says Roger Barnes, SCUSD Business Administrator.

Faced with a demand for between 150 and 170 teachers a year during the go-go era of class-size reduction, the district was desperate to find ways to attract and keep good teachers. "Teachers would stay a year or two and then leave," says Barnes. "They told us they loved working here, but they could not afford the cost of living."

So Santa Clara did something no other California district had ever tried. "We had some surplus land," Barnes says. "We decided to try and build our own rental housing for teachers."

Two years later, the district celebrated completion of the 40-unit Casa del Maestro, the state's first faculty housing community built for a public school district. Designed and built by the Sausalito-based Thompson/Dorfman Urban Residential Development company, the complex has the kinds of high-end amenities typical of luxury developments, yet charges rents that are less than half the market rate. To finance the $6 million project, the district sold $7.5 million in Certificates of Participation bonds.

When Casa del Maestro opened for business in April 2002, 100 teachers entered the lottery for a chance to move into the project. Watson was one of the lucky winners. "It is a beautiful place," she says. "The rooms are big and airy and the whole project is very well designed."

Within a year of moving into her affordable apartment, Watson had saved enough money to put a down payment on her own condominium. Her roommate followed suit a year later. Barnes says that's exactly what the project was designed to achieve. "It wasn't an easy process," says Barnes, "but the benefits to our teachers and the district made it well worth all the hard work."

Virtual business: real-world results

A complete computer illiterate when he signed up for a "virtual business" class two years ago, Fontana High School senior Albert Martinez is now a veteran geek. This is a young man who can now help design an award-winning Web site and troubleshoot enough hardware and software glitches to keep it up and running.

"I didn't know anything when I first started," says Martinez, Vice President for Information Technology at the virtual business that Fontana students operate in partnership with Kaiser Permanente.

Martinez, who plans to attend San Bernardino State this fall, is looking forward to a paid internship with Kaiser this summer. Fontana High's virtual business faculty advisor Victoria McClellan is used to watching her students go on to bigger and better things. There's something about learning to balance a budget, market a product and manage a payroll that inspires students looking for real-world relevance.

Three years ago, for example, a young man with academic problems and worrisome gang affiliations demonstrated such impressive leadership skills during his first year with the project that he was "hired" to be CEO of the virtual Kaiser his senior year. He graduated with a 4.0 grade point average and is now in college.

"I do get a few 'B' students in my classes," she says. "But most of the students who enroll in this elective are those who have not yet found their way."

The business may be simulated, but the students who run it learn exciting real-world skills, McClellan says. Because the "real" Kaiser has entered a partnership with Fontana's virtual health insurance company, McClellan's students are mentored by Kaiser staff. The company sends a chartered bus to ferry students to Kaiser's Pasadena training facility. Former students from the program also return to help teach entering virtual business students, McClellan says.

Fontana students interact with other young people in the virtual business world that includes simulated companies operated by students from 1,000 other schools as part of Virtual Enterprises International. The program is jointly operated by the Business Education Project at Sonoma State University, the California Department of Education and the Kern High School District. Virtual Kaiser student employees write the business plan, recruit prospective employees, calculate payroll, conduct employee evaluations and assign raises. Former students did the interviewing and hiring this year, McClellan says, and were tougher on applicants than teachers who did the hiring in previous years.

Fontana students market and "sell" virtual Kaiser health insurance to other student-run virtual businesses.

"The kids in marketing and sales were excited today because they enrolled 11 new subscribers during fourth period," McClellan says.

Fontana's virtual Kaiser accounts receivable student staff members are also negotiating with at least one virtual student-run business that has gone into virtual bankruptcy, making collecting on unpaid bills problematic.

"They've e-mailed, called and written letters," she says. "But when they talked about 'sending the thugs' to collect, I had to tell them that's illegal."