To the Editor: Response to letter on School Bond and Museum

[Editor’s Note: A recent letter asked about State Rep. Maralyn Chase’s stand on the Shoreline School District’s bond issue. Here, Rep. Chase, co-chair of a committee to save the Shoreline Historical Museum, responds.]

To the Editor:

My support for education, for full funding of education, is unquestioned, as is my support for green schools and the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leeds program, for the California High Performance School (CHPS) building standards and our own state’s High Performance School Building Program. We know that we need safe, healthy schools. I am on a national USGBC panel advocating for green schools for all 50 states. And, I love museums, am proud to support preservation of historic buildings across the State and appreciate the value they bring to a community. Our state’s citizens value historic preservation and excellent schools. These two priorities have been brought into conflict by a Shoreline School Board decision that can and should be changed. That decision has produced unnecessary conflict between the education community and the historic preservation community.

Bassetti Architects can design a green high school that does not destroy the Shoreline Historical Museum now housed in the historic Ronald School Building and that also meets the needs of the Shoreline School District. The oldest building in Shoreline with such rich history, along with the Museum, can be preserved.

This museum is more than its “collections.” The building itself is the manifestation of our state’s educational history. Few original school buildings are left. The Ronald School Building is one of the best examples of the schools that educated our pioneer-era school children. Its value is as important as a new “green” school.

We must separate the ongoing existence of the Museum from the school levy and bond measures. We need these measures to pass; of equal importance, we need to save the Museum. These are not mutually exclusive.

The School District claims to own the building, but the Museum has title to it. If the building has need of retrofitting, it is the responsibility of the Museum Board, not the Shoreline School Board.

At this moment, just a short time before the voters will receive their ballots, the remedy at hand is for the School Board to remove the Ronald School Building from its plans.

Bassetti Architects included plans for the Ronald School Building because they were told to. They can be told to leave it alone.

To all the fine citizens who are struggling with this issue – this is what democracy is all about. We can have civilized debate about issues without demeaning the participants.

Maralyn Chase
State Representative