EXCERPT:  ... Superior Court Judge Joel Pressman on Thursday morning granted a preliminary injunction to stop Grossmont from spending the bond money, as requested by the Alpine Union School District and a group known as Alpine Taxpayers for Bond Accountability. The unincorporated community of Alpine has its own K-8 school district, but high school students attend schools in the Grossmont district.

      Grossmont district voters approved Proposition H in 2004 and Prop. U in 2008, bond measures that total nearly $700 million. Along with funding to upgrade 11 existing district schools, the measures included money to construct a high school in Alpine. That school has not been built. Grossmont says a predetermined enrollment trigger has not been met to warrant its construction. The two Alpine groups want a high school in town, however, and fear that all the bond money will spent on other projects.

      In Prop. U, the bond language states that a school for Alpine would be built "after district-wide enrollment at the existing comprehensive high school sites, including the two current charter schools, equals or exceeds 23,245." Those enrollment numbers were met it in 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11, according to Grossmont school board documents. The district says, though, that it had not acquired the land yet for the school and now the enrollment is below the threshold. The district currently has 21,576 students. Officials there project a decline of 149 students next year, and don't expect to return to the enrollment trigger until after 2020.

      Prop. H language never stipulated an enrollment trigger and said only money would be allotted to "construct a new school."

      "Grossmont never said they wouldn't build a school in Alpine, just not now," said Grossmont attorney Warrington Parker III.

      Without a nearby high school, several hundred Alpine area students continue to make long treks to either Steele Canyon High in Spring Valley or Granite Hills High in El Cajon.

     The district has said it will be in court again Jan. 28 to file for a stay of the injunction as well as begin to prepare for an appeal.  ...