CALABASAS TO VOTE ON SCHOOL FUNDS : LAS VIRGENES SCHOOL OFFICIALS PLAN STRATEGY FOR BOND ELECTION.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

Two times out, third time lucky?

Since 1991, the Las Virgenes Unified School District has tried - and failed - twice to persuade voters to approve a parcel tax to pay for needed programs and teachers.

Now the district is once again getting ready to ask voters to pony up money - this time in the form of a bond issue to improve the district's school buildings and help finance some new ones.

And this year the district has a new superintendent, John Fitzpatrick, who pushed through a similar bond issue several years ago at his previous district - and who has the beginnings of a strategy in mind.

Voters must be convinced that the bond issue isn't for the district, but for the individual schools, he said. Voters must see just how the bond money will be used at each school.

``You have to personalize it down to the level of each school, so that parents and people are convinced there is a need and go out and vote for their school,'' Fitzpatrick said.

Still to be decided is the actual amount of the bond issue. The next few months will be spent in conducting a needs assessment, Fitzpatrick said.

``We're looking at close to $60 million; that's a real rough estimate at this point,'' Fitzpatrick said.

The district has about 11,000 students, and about 200 more are expected next year. School officials say building improvements at all the schools will be needed in the next few years, along with another middle school and two more elementary schools.

The district now has eight elementary schools, two middle schools, two high schools and a continuation high school.

Also still to be decided is whether to hold the special election in March or June 1997, Fitzpatrick said.

The district came close to passing a parcel tax on two separate occasions.

In 1991, a $3 million school proposition that would have assessed property owners $150 per year for four years fell about 2 percent short of the needed two-thirds majority to pass.

Two years later the district put the same proposal on the ballot. Again it failed, although it garnered 63.6 percent ``yes'' votes. It needed 66.6 percent to pass.

Getting a parcel tax for about $150 per year is a tough proposition, said Donald Zimring, the district's assistant superintendent for business.

``The current requirement for the super majority makes that very difficult to get,'' Zimring said.

But a bond issue, with a smaller annual bite on tax bills, is different and should be easier for voters to take, according to Fitzpatrick.

With most bond issues stretching over 25 years, voters would see their tax bills increase by $20 to $25 per year per $100,000 assessed property value, he said.

Zimring said that Las Virgenes has successfully passed bond issues in the past.

And Fitzpatrick has some experience passing with bonds, having pushed through a $60 million school-facilities ballot measure in 1992 while he was superintendent of the Rim of the World Unified School District in the Lake Arrowhead area.

About 70 percent of voters in that election approved the bonds, he said.

Rim of the World at the time had about 5,200 students, but many of the same needs as bigger Las Virgenes, he said. It was easier in a smaller district for voters to care about all the schools in the area, he believes.

``Here we're so spread out that we have to focus on the school site as the center of the election,'' Fitzpatrick said.

The district will probably soon begin organizing school site forums and meetings, where parents will be given details about the schools' needs.

The meetings should erase any doubt about the need for the bond issue, he said.