ENCINITAS — San Dieguito Union High School District leaders want to take back control of how school facilities are rented out to third parties, backtracking a process that has served as a significant source of revenue for school-based foundations for the past several years.
Foundations at four district high schools currently manage the process of renting out district facilities to outside groups — serving as both “landlord” and “ticket holder” — and use the resulting revenue to fund student-focused enhancement projects.
These groups have been managing the process since 2016, when officials at the time asked them to take it over. Now, district leaders say they want to regain oversight to ensure the groups renting facilities have sufficient liability insurance and that rental fees cover facility maintenance costs.
At a May 17 board meeting, Interim Superintendent Tina Douglas said the district’s goal is to transition management of third-party rentals from foundations to the district itself by next fall.
Foundations will be permitted to continue facilitating these rentals for the next year as they determine how to pivot to other forms of funding that will allow programs to continue.
“There is no change to the practice that is in place currently for the upcoming school year,” Douglas said. “We have the same desire to make sure that programs are not impacted, and so that’s some of the work we would be doing in the upcoming school year.”
However, work remains to get the foundations on board with the change. Several foundation leaders said they were not involved in the process of developing the proposed memorandum of understanding presented at the meeting.
“SDAF recognizes that the district can make policy changes, but their uncooperative style of interaction with their recognized school connected organizations, whose sole purpose is to provide financial and volunteer support for each of the four main high schools in the District, has, once again, propagated an environment of mistrust and uncooperation,” said Leslie Kulchin Saldana, executive director of San Dieguito Academy Foundation.
The board ultimately rejected the draft agreement in a 3-2 vote, with Trustee Michael Allman and Trustee Phan Anderson dissenting. Board President Rimga Viskanta said the document lacked clear language in some areas and required further collaboration with the foundations.
“From the discussion and comments received, it became clear that it was not ready for approval yet as there was not a clear level of understanding from all parties involved in signing the agreement,” Viskanta said.
Allman disagreed with the majority decision and claimed that foundation leaders have been unwilling to accept a change to the status quo for the past two years.
“We’ve been talking with the foundation since I’ve been on the board. There’s a reluctance to understand that they can’t rent our assets for us. We just can’t make progress,” Allman said.
Joanne Couvrette, executive director of Canyon Crest Academy Foundation, said the proposed change would be detrimental to the organization, which has used rental fee revenue to complete campus improvements like all-new classroom furnishings for $1 million, a $275,000 new theater sound system, new gym floors, and new computers in the cinema lab.
“We were asked to put money back into facilities, and that’s what we’ve done in a big big way,” Couvrette said.
This is possible because the nonprofit has greatly expanded revenue from facility rentals since taking in 2016, Couvrette said, noting the CCA Foundation raised hundreds of thousands of dollars just in the last year from third-party rentals compared to an average of just $100,000 between all four schools in years past.
“We’ve grown this to over 200 community partners … My concern is they [the district] weren’t set up to do it eight years ago, and they aren’t set up to do it now,” she said.
While third-party rentals make up 25% of the CCA Foundation’s revenue, this change will have a less significant effect on other foundations like La Costa Canyon High School Foundation.
However, these groups share other concerns about the impact on student clubs and teams.
“Third-party rentals are not our primary concern, as long as the students are able to support their own programs through access to the facilities,” said LCC Foundation Executive Director Beth Crowder.
Several teams and clubs that earn much of their funding through camps and clinics on school property are now concerned that they will now face rental fees with this change.
At the May 17 meeting, members of CCA’s speech and debate club told the board they depend heavily on the revenue they earn through their summer camp to fund club operations, including travel to tournaments.
“Please make sure that the language on the MOU allows us to continue to run our summer camp without crippling facilities fees, because if there is one thing I’ve learned in debate, it’s that words matter,” said CCA sophomore Michi Synn.
Board members assured the community that under district policy, student clubs and teams using school sites for activities directly benefiting their cause would not be charged the fees incurred by outside groups.
Viskanta said the goal is for foundations to continue coordinating these camps and clinics with student groups.
“If the foundations choose to charge administrative fees to cover their costs for handling camp registrations, advertisements and a higher level of field maintenance than the district is able to provide, then that is a decision for the foundations to make,” said Viskanta.
Joe Austin, president of the Torrey Pines High School Foundation, agreed the MOU needs clearer language related to how sports and clubs can continue to fundraise through camps and clinics.
However, he said he believes rentals management does need to return to the district.
“The irony of it is, we can be the leasing agent, the landlord, but the custodians and groundskeepers don’t work for the foundation,” Austin said. “I think they’re trying to correct a decision that wasn’t a decision that necessarily should have been made.”
