Retired School Officials Back At Work, Determined To Get CV Bond Approved

Three retired administrators from the Central Valley School District, plus a veteran volunteer, are leading the campaign to pass a $23 million bond issue on Feb. 6.

The campaign is called Kids First. The three retirees, Chuck Hafner, Bob Jayne and John Frucci, have a combined 95 years as educational leaders in the Valley. Gus Schmauch taught for 10 years and has volunteered for many more.

The four are settling into 12-hour days, stringing together umpty-two meetings with innumerable cups of bad coffee. They have a message for the CV community:

“We didn’t come out of retirement to have this not be a success,” Hafner said.

That sums up his approach to the Feb. 6 bond issue request. He’s chairman of the team.

Past bond issue campaigns in CV have been supported by parents and business groups. This is the first time the district has turned to such a wealth of educational experience.

The four intend to send the whole community the same message: Strong schools mean strong businesses mean strong community.

After last year’s bond defeat, Schmauch said, she met with opponents of the bond request from U-Hi. She learned they didn’t have a lot of the information about the bond proposal. “It was scary to find that out after the fact,” she said.

Their solution? To form 30 committees, covering areas from finance to thank-you notes. To coax donations - their office, their copier and their telephone, so far. And to eyeball every detail, be it the wording of a letter to business people, or brainstorming ways to reach parents who are pre-occupied with Christmas.

Hafner, Jayne and Frucci figure they have provided the leadership to get seven or eight day-to-day operations levies and bond issue requests passed.

“We never did have a defeat in that leadership. And we’re not going to have a defeat now,” Jayne said.

, DataTimes