AnonymousBy Ted Pallad, Santa Barbara Friday Night Lights
CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS, CAN’T WIN?
More than 680 children from 46 different local elementary and middle schools may lose the opportunity to play flag football on Friday nights this fall at Santa Barbara Junior High School. Conflicts with The Marjorie Luke Theatre, parking and school administration pushback are the reasons.
Kids in grades K-8th from Goleta, Santa Barbara and Montecito have come to the school on Friday nights to play their one hour game for about ten weeks each season. Santa Barbara Friday Night Lights (“FNL”) has become a successful community event in town offering kids and families a fun, safe and healthy activity on Friday nights. Now, due to previous parking conflicts with The Marjorie Luke Theatre, FNL had their Fall 2022 permits cancelled. Outgoing School Principal, Arielle Curry acknowledges that they could work around their schedule but does not think Santa Barbara FNL is a ‘good fit’ for the school moving forward. It should be noted that Mrs. Curry is also serving as a Board Member of the Marjorie Luke Theatre.
Arielle Curry is leaving Santa Barbara Junior High School to become principal at Washington Elementary in the fall. Santa Barbara FNL had almost 70 children from Washington Elementary school alone that played this past Spring. Curry tells FNL that due to parking constraints that will significantly impact the school and East Side community, she will not be approving their fall 2022 permits.
The Marjorie Luke Theatre has 800 seats in their auditorium which, could potentially, equal 400 or more cars. FNL has a maximum of 258 kids playing or warming up at any given time, making far less of an impact on the east side. The Ocean Hills Covenant Church also is also allowed to park on campus every Sunday, again with hundreds of cars filling the school parking lots and city streets.
“Due to the fact that we understand FNL games, church services and theater productions cannot take place at the same time, we’ve gladly rescheduled games and have been extremely flexible to avoid any conflicts. Still, the kids of FNL are the ones that are being punished. Unfortunately, Santa Barbara is extremely limited in public field space. We have found that the fields at SBJH are available and ideal to accommodate the kids that want to play FNL. Without these fields, I’m afraid we’ll have nowhere to go.” says Nevin Pallad, Co-Commissioner at FNL.
Youth sports organizations in Santa Barbara continuously struggle to find open field space. The only challenge this past year for FNL was conflicts with the Marjorie Luke Theatre and parking, even though it was only for 2 of their 10 scheduled Friday night games.
It should be noted that the commissioners of Friday Night Lights have been huge supporters of the performing arts at the school district for the past seven years. All 4 of their children have participated and continue to participate in musical and theater productions at San Marcos High School, La Colina Junior High and Santa Barbara City College.
‘We are huge fans of theater and youth sports. We’ve offered to work with The Luke on parking challenges and to promote their future productions to our FNL families”, says Ted Pallad, Commissioner of Santa Barbara FNL.
A ‘unique’ joint-use partnership was created in 2002 between the Luke Theatre and the Santa Barbara Unified School District that enables them to operate the theatre for community and school use.
Pallad also stated, “We know the Luke does not want us on campus which has been expressed to us by several employees at SBJHS. Joint use of public school facilities is supposed to be a way to efficiently enhance the services and programs available to students while supporting the community use of public schools. While many local officials understand that joint use of public schools can often provide a host of benefits, doing so requires public agencies to work together in new and different ways. We are able to work with everyone but we just aren’t getting their support.”
Friday Night Lights suggested that the school district should open the parking lot on their 4.7 acre property (National Guard Armory Building) across the street from the school, which they spent $11.6 million dollars to purchase. “Their investment has sat vacant and behind a chain linked fence for over 5 years now. Currently its used for construction storage. What a waste of money and resources. This space would alleviate parking challenges for the East Side and would easily address the schools parking concerns.”
FNL also pays almost $20,000 to Santa Barbara Junior High School for the use of their fields and feels that this money greatly benefits all students at Santa Barbara Unified.
Santa Barbara Friday Night Lights is hoping that they can work together with Santa Barbara Junior High School, The Marjorie Luke Theatre and Santa Barbara Unified School District to have their fall permits reinstated and approved. “There are no obstacles that we can’t work through,” says Pallad. “This is supposed to be all about the kids and it’s frustrating that the decision made is because someone doesn’t think we’re a ‘good fit’ for the school and others are just unwilling to work on solutions. We hope our FNL families can help us secure these fields and prove to the school and district that we are actually a ‘great fit’ for Santa Barbara Junior High School.
FNL has reached out to Superintendent Maldonado and the school principal and unfortunately, has not heard back from either.
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I love the theatre! But I don’t like reading that the Principal can’t manage both the theatre schedule and kids playing flag football schedule. Can’t the theatre and the kids football games just be done on different nights?
Yeah, if the kids went to a play or other presentation in the theater, they might actually learn something, when instead they could just run around and learn nothing except how sports promoters are generally poor sportsmen.
This is just another example of liberal bureaucrats finding reasons to shut down something that is successful and benefits kids. 100% Lame. I truly hope enough support is gathered to change this incredibly stupid decision.
Once again, the school district is failing to be a positive collaborator with other public entities, whether it be city or non-profit or otherwise. They don’t need the money, so from an admin’s perspective it’s just work and hassle. For all the signalling about “community engagement,” the rubber isn’t meeting the road. The only tool that sometimes works is public shaming… hence this op-ed apparently…. I hope it works in this case.
Get back to the table and figure out something that works. That’s the community’s space there under your charge to manage… manage it for public good already! Our kids need arts, yes, and also exercise!
What kind of judgment does this principle have who only months ago so mishandled the racial incident at the Santa Barbara Jr High that has resulted in several lawsuits to date?
What kind of management is this from this principle or this Santa Barbara School District administration?
There needs to be a full discussion to come to reasonable solutions that would allow these athletic games to continue.
I think opening up more parking at the Armory in proximity that just sits abandoned tying up a huge capital investment is an excellent idea to explore if more parking is needed.
We don’t need more politics hurting our children. With mental health such a growing problem, the importance of opportunities for physical activity and socializing for students of this district should be a priority.
Susan Salciedo is on the advsory board. Could all thoes that voted for her send her an email?
That is if you care about the kids.
Favoring parking instead of playing seems a really bad priority. Another awful move by the tone-deaf education elite in Santa Barbara that have transformed the school district into a bureaucracy that seems interested only in perpetuating itself, not serving the community. Maybe they should offer the option of letting the flag football program use the $39 million football stadium at the high school that we all paid for. The misuse of these public facilities really needs to be called into question, as much as the arrogance of imposing their will on this community.
@Goleta is good. You’re wrong… it’s great!!!
Not trying to be unfriendly (hence my stupid joke above) but it’s hard to take the concern for the grass as anything other than a pretext. Cancel football or soccer because it’s bad for the grass? Why do we pay for the grass to be there in the first place!?! You’re throwing the baby out with the bath-water.
In general, when someone gives you a litany of very shallow reasons why something can’t be done, they’re looking for a way to say no. It hurts our community, one bureaucratic papercut at a time.
Can learn a lot from watching The Office. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuTfZwnpn78
When I volunteered to coach soccer, I made sure that my kids picked up 10 pieces of trash before leaving the field. When we leave places in better condition than we found them, it makes things better for everyone.
Some of the arguments in this thread sound extremely entitled. As if the schools owed it to the general public to allow themselves to be trashed every week. The money to maintain the schools and fields comes out of a budget that also pays for teaching children and paying salaries and buying educational tools.
Perhaps the FNL organizers could ask for an exit interview with the principal to find out if there was anything in their organization that could stand improvement before hurling wild random accusations all around.
The reason the permit was revoked was a single issue.
FNL and SBUSD signed a contract for FNL to use the SBJHS fields on specific dates. Then, midway through the FNL spring season someone in admin (at either SBJHS or SBUSD) screwed up and double booked SBJHS by permitting an event at the LUKE on the same night as a previously contracted FNL game night.
All of this mess could have been avoided if that person in admin had been able to manage a calendar spreadsheet.
Going forward SBUSD doesn’t want to be held responsible for any possible scheduling conflicts because, apparently, they don’t feel confident they are organized enough to handle multiple groups at the same location. So, they are divorcing themselves from the easier relationship to drop.
It’s a good thing SBUSD is only in charge of our kids education!
Who is defending the schools stopping kids from using the field because the theater wants complete and utter control of the parking for any/all non school hours??? Like seriously…other than being a school admin and as such appreciating the bureaucratic humor of revoking just to revoke/because it would make their life (just ever so slightly) easier, why?
The school boards in this town are awful… but even with that being said, it’s amazing how often they like to tangibly remind us of that!
The last two comments are essentially making my point… that the School District doesn’t think it’s their role to manage our public fields and assets for the public good, just for their own purposes. Anything else is a hassle.
If that’s the case, the fields should be ceded to Public Works or Parks and Rec, with the schools having exculsive right of use during recess and priority for their extracurricular needs. “Cleaning up after events” is literally part of the job.
Could you imagine if Parks and Rec wanted to cancel parades or Fiesta or 4th of July because it’s a lot of work? Or if Parks and Rec cancelled sporting events on fields because it’s annoying to manage the turf or enforce rules around dogs? Attn Hilda and friends, it’s literally part of your job.
For all the big talk, the District has really lost sight of their mandate as a community partner. As I said before, the rubber isn’t meeting the road.
Transparent…
I am grateful when my kids have nice grass fields to play on at school. If the fields get torn up and become dirt patches, it is not “good” and it is extremely costly to repair which involves field closures for all. They need to be managed to prevent overuse. The school district facilities manager may be doing just this… Why not slow your judgements until you have more information?
This is awful! As if youth sports haven’t been hit hard enough as it is. The district also just declared a surprise 2 week “dead period” for summer high school sports. STOP MESSING WITH YOUTH SPORTS!! Kids need this and FNL is a great organization, for all ages up to high school, boys and girls. My kids have done it and it’s awesome to see them out there having fun every week with hundreds of other kids. We were worried about parking last year at SB Jr. High, but we always found a spot either at the school or within a block of the field.
SBJH and SBUSD – whoever is to blame for this, STOP. Let the kids PLAY!!
Not to mention which side of the isle truly doesn’t give a rat’s about kids – allowing school shootings to go on, constantly shutting down attempts at more funding for public schools, welfare programs, universal childcare, etc….. Yeah, it’s us liberals who don’t care about kids lol!
Mayor Rowse is currently in the process of getting public and private funds to establish a lighted multi-use sports facility, which is primarily to be used by local youth leagues/teams. Please be patient as these things do not happen overnight, even though they were needed “yesterday.” In the mean time, he is working with local schools to see what can be done to rectify the lack of facilities for our youth. Good job Randy!
Lucky 777, I totally agree. Great point about the hypocrisy – the district admin. players and city leaders often make that correlation, but here they are denying a massively popular youth activity, where? You guessed it, right in the heart of the lower east side. Wow.
SB needs to learn from Goleta and Girsh.
How the freak did I get 2 downvotes for agreeing that the armory could be used as parking and hoping Girsh puts up lights? Voice must have 2 accounts lol!