North Monterey County Unified explores a bond measure to upgrade schools.

Peeling paint, leaky roofs and unregulated temperatures are part of the classroom experience for many students in North Monterey County Unified School District. Some of its schools are over 70 years old (Castroville Elementary and Prunedale Elementary were built in 1948 and 1949, respectively).

To address aging facilities, the board is considering placing a $40 million bond measure on the November ballot.

“Without a bond, [improvements] are just not possible. We want the best facilities for our school and for our community and for our students, because if students aren’t safe, warm and dry, they can’t learn,” Superintendent Matt Turkie says.

This amount is one-fifth of what district officials forecast would be needed to upgrade all facilities; according to a 2025 feasibility study, NMCUSD needs nearly $200 million.

True North Research, based in Encinitas, conducted a survey at different bond amount thresholds. A bond of $30 per $100,000 in assessed value is the maximum amount the firm recommends.

Eric Stover, 40, is a NMCUSD alum and a dad of two kids, David, 17, and Cheyenne, 13, both attending schools in the district. His youngest graduated from Castroville Elementary last year, in the same school Stover did. He says he saw a hole in the wall when he was a fourth-grader that is still there.

“The only thing different now is that there are now wires passing through it because it’s being used to bring ethernet into that classroom,” Stover says.

Stover recognizes a bond could be challenging for some property owners who live on a fixed income, but he sees it as an investment. “If I was going to vote no on it – which I’m not going to – that’s saying, ‘I’m sorry kids… your education isn’t worth an extra $200 a year in property taxes.’”

In 2024, voters throughout Monterey County passed 11 out of 15 school bond measures, including an ambitious $340 million one from Monterey Peninsula Unified School District to upgrade facilities and build staff housing.

Turkie says NMCUSD is on the same path as MPUSD was in 2010. MPUSD has been upgrading schools over the past 15 years after passing three bond measures providing a combined $663 million.

Rural districts like NMCUSD struggle to pass bonds. During its last attempt in 2017, voters said no to Measures E and F, for $76 million combined, that would have gone toward facilities upgrades and reopening Moss Landing Middle School.

(In 2013, they approved Measure H for $23.8 million. Some voters may still be skeptical after the district didn’t deliver a second middle school after passing a bond in 2002.)

NMCUSD officials will host a meeting on the proposed measure from 5:30-7:30pm on Thursday, April 16 at North Monterey County High School, at 13990 Castroville Blvd., Castroville, to gather community input. Campus tours will follow in the coming weeks.