Misused school money

If you want a new high school, $98 million can go a long way. You can furnish it with computer rooms, fancy up the home economics department and create a mock-trial room, organized like a real courtroom.

This is exactly how Lynwood Unified School District officials decided to lay out their new $98 million facility, California's most expensive public school.

The old school was converted into a junior high. Did Lynwood officials cut overhead costs of their new school and share some of the wealth to fix up the old school's graffiti-tainted walls or its 50-year-old gymnasium?

No. The old school is completely dependent upon 45 trailers and broken microscopes. Computers lack the Internet, and the home economics department has been left with only one stove (of which one burner is working), dirty cabinets and no refrigerator.

Although cleaning crews devoted all of August to fixing up the "new" junior high, some faculty still felt conditions were inadequate.

"[These cabinets] are supposedly storage space," said Debera Armbruster, a home economics teacher. "Would you store food here? It's disgusting."

It is a run through the dirt for the nearby school districts that are just struggling for an ample supply of books each year. Students attending these schools are not going to feel underprivileged, they are going to feel cheated.