Prop. 82 failure not seen as loss

The defeat Tuesday of Proposition 82, a measure that sought to provide preschool for all children in California, had little effect in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, as officials said they had doubts about the plan’s effectiveness.

The measure, which 61% of California voters rejected in Tuesday’s election, would have taxed wealthy Californians to help pay for a year of preschool for every 4-year-old in the state. The measure’s creator, film director and educational activist Rob Reiner, saw it as a means of expanding preschool to poor and working families.

Following the measure’s rejection, district Supt. Robert Barbot and school board President David Brooks said they hadn’t expected it to pass and didn’t think the district would be worse off without universal preschool.

“This wasn’t even on the radar screen when we did our strategic plan,” Barbot said. “One of the things that’s been difficult to monitor has been that Proposition 82 never established criteria about who would get ? [preschool], other than everybody. We were always trying to get programs started where there was a need.”

In the last few years, the district has gone from having no preschools to having six ? at Wilson, Whittier, Pomona, College Park and California elementary schools, as well as Harper Preschool. Except for Harper, all the sites are in less affluent areas of Costa Mesa, the kind of neighborhoods Proposition 82 sought to support.

Most of Newport-Mesa’s implementation costs for preschools have been covered by grants and state funds. Barbot and Brooks said the district is looking to add more sites in coming years.

A measure like Proposition 82, Brooks added, would have complicated the process more than helped it.

“To establish a multi-billion-dollar bureaucracy to accomplish something that’s already been done, that wasn’t especially appealing to me,” Brooks said.

Barbot noted that Lorie Hoggard, Newport-Mesa’s preschool director, often meets with administrators at the area’s private preschools, even coordinating events and sharing facilities with them. Students from those schools frequently attend Newport-Mesa campuses.

“All we want to do is make sure they come to school prepared ? whatever that takes,” Barbot said.