The Mill Valley School District continues to provide students with an exceptional education, preparing them for high school and beyond. Mill Valley schools have adapted to changing and challenging circumstances the past two years in order to continue providing a quality education to local students. We are focused on maintaining safe, in-person instruction for students, teachers, and staff. Our success is rooted in our dedicated teachers, staff, and parents’ commitment to developing well-rounded and globally-minded students. High-achieving schools that nurture successful students improve the quality of life in our community and protect the property value of our homes.

We’re proud of the high quality of education in Mill Valley schools, but most of the schools in the district are between 40 and 100 years old and need repairs and upgrades to meet modern academic, ADA and safety standards. Our District prides itself on providing our students with an outstanding education, and our facilities simply don’t match the excellence of teaching, particularly our facilities for science, technology, engineering and math. Currently, the outdated classrooms and facilities are costly and inefficient to operate. Upgrades to our local schools will meet the highest environmental standards with renewable energy systems, improved energy efficiency and water conservation that will be better for the environment, better for our students and less expensive to operate.

Mill Valley Middle School, which serves all students as they advance from elementary to middle school, was built in 1972 and its aging infrastructure is not designed for 21st century teaching and learning. Significant upgrades are needed to support science, technology, engineering and math classrooms and labs, and to enable collaboration, project-based learning and high levels of student support. Outdated electrical, plumbing, heating and ventilation systems need to be replaced, and upgrades are needed to improve accessibility, energy efficiency, and earthquake and fire safety.

Our district maintenance team work hard to take care of our aging classrooms and school facilities by keeping up with necessary repairs and maintenance. Unfortunately, significant upgrades and capital improvements needed at our aging schools are beyond what can be accomplished by our maintenance team, and funded by our regular maintenance budget. The very limited state funding which might be available for facility upgrades generally requires local matching funds, usually provided by a local school improvement measure.

Measure G would: 

• Repair and replace leaky roofs and windows and outdated electrical and plumbing systems 
• Expand and upgrade science, technology, engineering and math classrooms, labs and learning technology to meet current instructional standards 
• Improve accessibility for students with disabilities 
• Add solar panels and improve energy efficiency throughout the District 
• Replace outdated heating and ventilation systems to improve air filtration and indoor air quality at all schools 
• Improve earthquake and fire safety

While decisions are still being finalized, replacing the main buildings at the middle school is estimated to be more efficient and less costly than an extensive renovation. Plus, this will allow these facilities to be brought up to current academic and safety standards without the constraints of working within a facility designed to outdated standards.

The State and Federal Government do not provide dedicated funding for school facility improvements. The very limited state funding which might be available for facility upgrades generally requires local matching funds, usually provided by a local school improvement measure. Our District has, and will continue to, apply for funding from the state if it becomes available.

It has been over a decade since Mill Valley last passed a bond measure to improve local schools. Waiting will likely make these repairs more expensive to complete and will mean local students must wait years for urgent upgrades for safety and improvements needed to support quality academic instruction. If approved by voters, Measure G would provide a dedicated source of funding for facility improvements without taking money away from classroom instruction. In addition, interest rates are at all-time lows and now is the time to invest in our schools at the lowest cost possible to taxpayers. Mill Valley recently conducted a survey of local residents which indicated strong (62%) support for a proposed bond measure, even while acknowledging the current state of our economy. 

Yes, if approved by voters, Measure G requires mandatory fiscal accountability, including: 

• All funds raised by the measure would stay local to support Mill Valley students and could not be taken by the State 
• A project list detailing how the funds would be used 
• Funds can only be used for facilities, not salaries or benefits 
• An independent citizens’ oversight committee and independent audits to ensure funds are spent as promised

No. If Measure G is approved by voters, all funds generated from the measure would stay local to support Mill Valley schools. The State would not be able to take any funds.

Measure G would generate approximately $194 million to upgrade local schools and would cost about $26 per $100,000 of a property’s assessed value (not market value) per year.

District leadership and the Board of Trustees have engaged in an exhaustive multi-year process in order to determine the facilities needs of the district, develop a facility master plan, and investigate potential funding options for facilities needs. Please see this timeline of Board meetings, presentations and workshops where the district's facilities master plan and potential funding avenues have been discussed and developed.

There are a number of sources of one-time funds that have been made available to school districts in an effort to balance the negative financial and learning impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.  These grants vary in how restrictive they are in terms of how the money can be spent.  MVSD has received a number of Covid-19 grants, and has applied these funds to a variety of uses, including some facilities projects, all with review and approval of our Board of Trustees.  One of these facility projects is the construction of shade structures for our campuses.  Due to restrictions on how the grants may be used, and the needs of the district due to the impacts of Covid, the funds are not sufficient to cover our extensive facilities needs. Some of the ways the funds have been spent include the purchase of protective equipment, additional staff for targeted instruction to address learning loss, and professional development for staff.  For more detail on the Covid-19 grants received by the district and how those funds have been allocated, please review this presentation.

The cost of bond measures is based on the assessed value of properties. The assessed value of a property is based on the original purchase price and may not increase by more than 2% a year, while the market value tends to grow at a much faster rate based on market conditions. Thus, the assessed value is usually much lower than the market value, especially if a property was purchased long ago at a much lower price than it could be purchased for today. It is this lower assessed value upon which the cost of a bond measure is based.