TUSD racing to sell closed school in effort to avoid sale to charter, private schools

The Tucson Unified School District is racing to sell its long-vacant Corbett Elementary School, attempting to beat the deadline for a new state law that could force it to sell to a charter or private school.

State lawmakers, spurred by Republican Rep. Vince Leach of Tucson, passed a bill this year specifically reacting to TUSD’s past history of refusing to sell its closed schools to charter or private school operators.

The bill, which Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law, states school districts may not accept an offer to sell or lease a school that is less than an offer from a charter or private school, and that districts cannot pull a school off the market solely because a private or charter school is the highest bidder.

The law goes into effect Aug. 3.

TUSD Governing Board members on Tuesday said they want to sell Corbett now or pull it off the market before the law goes into effect.

Board Member Kristel Foster made no bones about racing to beat the legislation.

“Before August, we have the authority as the board to look at the offer price as well as the (intended) use (of the property),” she said. “And I’ll just come out and tell you, if we are going to sell a property, I would rather have that land used to bring more students into our district rather than sell that property to a charter that will take students out of our district.”

After debating closing the school in the 1980s and again in 2008, TUSD ultimately shuttered the doors to Corbett — which was built in 1955 and had the capacity to serve 565 students, though in the end it only had 425 enrolled. It was closed in 2013, along with 10 other schools. The school, which sits on seven acres, is at 5949 E. 29th St.

The district has two bids on the school — one for $715,000 from developer Pepper Viner and another for $650,000 from TK Development. Both bids are above the appraised value, according to the district.

However, TUSD refused to disclose the appraised value of the school, even though taxpayer dollars paid for the appraisal.

The district’s attorney, Robert Ross, said the appraisals were originally discussed in executive session, and it would not be in the best interest of the district to disclose the appraisal value because it will harm TUSD’s ability to get the best price for the property.

Dan Barr, an attorney with Perkins Coie who specializes in public records issues, said there’s no reason the assessment should be kept secret.

In 2013, TUSD sold Wrightstown Elementary School, which was closed in 2010, to Pepper Viner for $1.6 million, despite having an offer for $2 million from a Christian private school. That sparked a backlash from state lawmakers, who cited that example as the reason for the bill this year.

Leach, who sponsored the legislation, said he was researching whether TUSD would be violating any rules by attempting to sell the building before the law goes into effect, though he acknowledged until the law is on the books, the district can probably do what it wants.

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“Democracy is great,” he said.

Republican Rep. Mark Finchem of Oro Valley, who voted for the legislation, said “it’s that kind of wrongheaded thinking that is destructive to education.”

“Apparently they don’t want to compete in the arena of ideas. ... If there’s a school who wants to move into a vacant school to provide quality education, what exactly is wrong with that?” Finchem asked.

TUSD Governing Board member Adelita Grijalva said she’s not in favor of selling any property, but if the district is going to sell, she agreed it should do so before the August deadline or pull it off the market.

“I would like this board to be in control of who we sell the property to,” Grijalva said.

Board member Mark Stegeman said he agreed that the legislation is a significant consideration and the board should act or pull it off the market “so we don’t get into a forced-sale situation.”

But Stegeman noted that the bids are below what the district has received for other schools, and said he wanted to get an updated appraisal on Corbett before approving any bids.

Board member Rachael Sedgwick said if a charter school wants to offer more than a developer, the district has a responsibility to students to get as much as possible for the property and reinvest it in other schools.

“I also don’t view charter schools as the biggest, nastiest, most evil competition that we have. Because I’ve taught in some of them — they were very, very bad,” she said.

She noted that the school district has sat on the property since 2013, and urged her fellow board members to sell all of TUSD’s closed schools, rather than paying to maintain and hold on to them.

The district has spent about $30,000 per year to maintain Corbett.

TUSD planning services director Bryant Nodine said the district has tried to be strategic about its closed buildings.

At first, TUSD put them all on the market at once, but that wasn’t successful. So the district instead decided to try to lease schools and put them up for sale one by one so as to not saturate the market.

Nodine said TUSD has only three closed schools left on its books: Nan Lyons Elementary School, which has a lessee, Howenstine High School, which has a lease pending, and Corbett.