|
|
|
Uploaded: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 11:11 AM
District considers private eye
Mountain View Whisman trustees want to verify student enrollment
|
|
by Casey Weiss
Mountain View Voice Staff
| With elementary school enrollment growing faster than expected, and about 80 students on a waiting list to attend their neighborhood schools, some trustees want to hire an investigator to explore whether all students are properly enrolled.
The Mountain View Whisman School District currently has a student population of 4,408, a number administrators had not been expecting to reach until 2011. In part, administrators said during a board meeting last week, the increased enrollment can be explained by a growing number of families at Moffett Field and the expanding technology industry.
But several trustees suspect there may be something else at work, and suggest hiring a private investigator to make sure that all of the enrolled students are residents of Mountain View or have permission to attend the schools.
"It shocks me that today we are at the numbers we thought we would reach in 2011," said trustee Ellen Wheeler, who initiated the conversation about the investigator.
Students who are not residents within the district are allowed to transfer in, but are not given first priority. The district gives first priority to neighborhood students, then to students living within district boundaries, then to students from outside of the district.
This year more students were transferred from their neighborhood school to another campus, and trustees want to "make sure we are serving our kids -- in-town Mountain View kids first," said board president Fiona Walter in an e-mail to the Voice.
During last Thursday's meeting, trustees reached no decision about hiring a "private eye," but agreed to continue enrollment discussions on Thursday, Oct. 16. They seemed to be split on the issue, with some arguing the technology industry was the biggest cause of increased enrollment.
"I just want to make sure we are targeting the right group," said trustee Ed Bailey.
Administrators said enrollment was up 47 students from last year -- an unusually high number compared to enrollment several years ago. Most of the elementary schools are close to reaching full capacity, they said.
To address increased enrollment, trustees and administrators are considering moving PACT, a program that encourages parents to participate in the classroom, off the Castro campus and onto the district site. They are also planning to hold a new demographics study; the last such study was done in 2004.
"The demographic study will give us data that will need to be reviewed and then [we can] determine next steps," said director of administrative services Stephanie Totter.
Balancing class size
California has a class size reduction program which Mountain View Whisman participates in, meaning the district must keep classrooms below 21 students in order to receive funding. This year, because classes had reached this capacity, the district waitlisted 84 students who wanted to attend their neighborhood schools.
"When a classroom exceeds its maximum, we look at the last student put in the classroom and move them to another classroom that is below the maximum," Totter said. "We try very hard not to move a student out of the school."
The waitlist also includes 112 Mountain View residents who want to transfer schools, and 64 students who want to transfer into the district. There are also nine families who have an older child at one school but have to send younger siblings to another school due to over-enrollment.
"This has been an anxious time as they wait to see what happens," Totter said of those families.
Private eye
Typically, the district verifies students' addresses through electricity bills, lease agreements and home visits, and this year, administrators said, they have already found several families who lied about their address. But some trustees now say they may want to take more drastic measures.
For the last several years, Mountain View-Los Altos High School District administrators have worked with a contract employee to help them verify students' addresses. The elementary school district trustees said this may be a good solution.
Joe White, associate superintendent of business services, said the system works well for the high school district. "When there is a document they want to verify, they call this person up," he said.
The high school district is a basic aid district and receives the majority of its funding from property taxes, meaning it does not get more funding for increased enrollment. The elementary school district, by contrast, is a revenue limit district and receives funding depending on average daily attendance.
Even though the Mountain View Whisman district benefits from increased enrollment, trustees said they want to verify that students are properly enrolled out of fairness to those students being moved around. Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
|
|
| Comments
|
Posted by Ned, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 25, 2008 at 1:30 pm Great!. So the investigator will check the citizen status as well I presume. No wait, those Ameican citizens trying to enroll their children in MV schools from outside the district will be persecuted, while illegals will be allowed to continue to burden the school system and drive down the quality of education. What a mess.
|
|
Posted by CHRIS, a resident of another community, on Sep 25, 2008 at 1:34 pm WWW.INFIDLEITYPOLICE.COM
|
|
Posted by CHRIS, a resident of another community, on Sep 25, 2008 at 1:35 pm Web Link
|
|
Posted by Barb, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Sep 25, 2008 at 1:54 pm The MVWSD created this mess. You thought the PACT would fix your problems. So now you want to hire a private eye. Ellen you need to go.
|
|
Posted by imagine that, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Sep 25, 2008 at 3:01 pm WOW-already at the "estimated" 2011 population-should have kept ALL SCHOOLS OPEN.....unbelievable, we are turning kids away-how ridiculous that we gave up Slater so easily...how much will this PI cost us?? Ridiculous.
|
|
Posted by Enough!, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 25, 2008 at 8:13 pm Cram more kids into crowded schools and throw out parents who are clearly thinking about their children's education. Aren't these the type of parents the schools should be trying to attract and keep? Why is the MW school district, time and time again, so misguided?
|
|
Posted by Parent, a resident of the Shoreline West neighborhood, on Sep 25, 2008 at 8:15 pm How about we just get it over with and file suit against all the kids who try to attend school? What a nuisance. Don't those kids know that administrators would have more time to surf the web if they would just stop trying to attend?
|
|
Posted by Ned, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 25, 2008 at 8:31 pm What's coming next is when the board tells us we all have to move our kids to schools clear across town like what has happened in Los Altos. Then they'll tell us it's for our own good and that they know better. Wheeler? Didn't she run unopposed yet again? I guess we are all to blame for having no time or interest to get involved in our school board.
|
|
Posted by already there, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Sep 26, 2008 at 6:27 am Ned, where have you been-the district already DID that when they closed Slater(with Whisman already closed). No one in the North Whisman neighborhood has a neighborhood school! We all go to different schools and many of us on buses that cost each child two dollars a day. And you are right-they did tell us it would be better this way...
|
|
Posted by NW Parent, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Sep 26, 2008 at 4:06 pm And PACT was formerly based at Slater before it closed, right? So then it got moved to Castro and now they want to move it again?
I agree with "already there's" comment about no neighborhood schools in the NW area, now that 2 have closed. One of our neighbors has their boys at Huff this year, while the neighbor 2 doors down from them has her son at Landels. Go figure.
We could see this coming, so we chose to go with a private school for our son 4 yrs ago, but we still support the parents and students of our district. We walked with them from Slater to Landels before most of Slater became Google property. The autism program is still at Slater and does great work.
|
|
Posted by Slater Gator and proud of it!, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Sep 27, 2008 at 10:08 pm I so agree with the comments posted. What were you thinking anyway?Closing Slater was a travesty. It was a dis-service to our kids. It is crazy to not have neighborhood schools. Now you are complaining about crowded schools -
What was the real reason Slater was closed? Lets see - close Slater to move PACT to Castro to raise the test scores there.
Once PACT leaves Castro... what do you think will happen to the test scores there?
|
|
Posted by What Next?, a resident of the Monta Loma neighborhood, on Sep 27, 2008 at 11:40 pm What are some ideas for an improved plan for our schools? If they move PACT from Castro what then? What about moving PACT to Monta Loma and combining it with their CEL program? Make Monta Loma a mandatory Parental Involvement school? With the new found space at Castro there could be room at Monta Loma to accomplish this. Monta Loma is impacted by the inability of Castro to handle it's neighborhood kids. Comments?
|
|
Posted by unhappy parent, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 28, 2008 at 11:49 am The closing of Slater School shows the stupidity of MVWSD. The city of Mountain View is growing not shrinking. We have more children in Mountain View now than when Slater School was built. Where is the logic behind this decision? You would think we would build a new school instead of close one.
I guess by closing Slater it gives the administrator's a new job. That new job is repairing crowded schools. What a waste of time and money. Waste more money and hire a private eye. Disrupt the children who are trying to learn.
It is time to build a new school, since we have lost Slater School.
This all reflects back on MVWSD. THEY SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED.
|
|
Posted by Slater Parent, a resident of the Whisman Station neighborhood, on Sep 28, 2008 at 4:33 pm Here's an idea why not move the pact formally known as the "ppp" and the district office right out of our district. I blame the district for everything that has gone wrong. You can't budget you waste our time with meeting just to make yourselfs look good. The district has accomplished NOTHING.
|
|
Posted by Ex Los Altos, a resident of another community, on Sep 28, 2008 at 7:50 pm Maybe Mountain View can spend the ridiculous amounts of money that Los Altos spent to get a "demographic study" when simply knowing the people in your community would give you the same data. Then they could realize that inexplicably there are a number of new English Language Learners. Shocker. Then they could solve the problem by forcing people to drive an extra 40 miles a week, split up their families, and waste who knows how much time, effectively busing without the bus.
When Spanish becomes the primary language you folks might recognize the 800 pound gorilla that is sitting next to you. You don't need a PI. You need to read the constitution, enforce your laws, and have ICE do the job you are already paying them to do. You can't afford to educate other country's citizens when the going rate is $10k a kid.
|
|
Posted by Susan, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 29, 2008 at 1:21 pm The closing of Slater was terribly short sited! PACT was on that campus, was then moved to Castro, and will now be moved again. This is unfair to all the kids that were on the Slater campus. It is even more unfair that the schools are so overcrowded! Parents warned the district that this would happen, and only 3 years later and look where we are!
PACT is a great program and will do great things with their own school campus, however, this is essentially an opening of a new school, after a closing of one 3 years ago.
|
|
Posted by S, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 29, 2008 at 1:23 pm We closed a school just to open another one?
|
|
Posted by Susan, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 29, 2008 at 1:33 pm To What's next:
It doesn't work to force Parental involvement. This is what happened in another school district and a group of Parents got so mad they left and started a charter instead.
|
|
Posted by big mistake, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Sep 29, 2008 at 3:54 pm The North Whisman neighborhood has been screwed by the MVWSD. None of this is any big surprise to us...we told them this would happen when they closed Slater in 2005 (after having closed Whisman in 2000). We don't operate in a vacuum-too bad no one cared when they just wanted their school to stay open. Now everyone is feeling it. It is great that Castro was saved by Mesa de la Comunidad, but saving one school does not save a district. We should have been thinking about the kids and not worrying about making Google happy. Or was it just a grudge on Eleanor Yick's part? What the hell were they thinking??
|
|
Posted by F.Y.I., a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 29, 2008 at 4:59 pm In reading above; I see a lot of finger pointing, but no accountability. It's so easy to blame others and point fingers instead of just coming together for an amicable solution. Get off of the finger pointing of blaming it on other ethnicities and social structure; this society needs to get off their couches and do something about it. One would wonder how many of the complainants actually contributed in community involvement? instead of just "reading" about it and responding through blogs and email "post" sites.... Yes, it is tragic the way the system is set up, but the last time I checked, this was a democracy.. there's no excuse for belly aching. . . . Mumble, Grumble, Complain, Wallow, Hope, Dispair, Worry? . . . . . VOTE.
|
|
Posted by which finger?, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Sep 30, 2008 at 9:21 am F.Y.I.-we did everything we could and they still closed Slater. Now we are turning kids away because we don't have the space. We are shuffling principals like playing cards. We are moving schools like pieces in a chess game. These things are being done over summer break, behind closed doors, without community input, with political motivation and without the children's best interests being considered first and foremost. Yes we should get involved but this district has us playing cat and mouse to the point we don't know which way is up anymore. When it affects your life directly, you'll think differently. How do you know what we are or are not doing anyhow?
|
|
Posted by Margie, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Sep 30, 2008 at 12:10 pm You give so much credit to the PACT these kids don't do any better in middleschool or high school. There social skills lack because parents were always there to hold there hand.
|
|
Posted by Ray, a resident of the Sylvan Park neighborhood, on Sep 30, 2008 at 5:52 pm I couldn't agree with you more "which finger". We need to take back control of the school district so it represents the demands and needs of the parents whose children are attending, not the demands of the ego-centric district office and superintendant who is just trying to make a name for himself as far as I can tell.
|
|
Posted by LOL, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Oct 4, 2008 at 10:54 am ROFL.
We need a scapegoat, right?
|
|
Posted by LOL, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Oct 4, 2008 at 10:55 am ROFL.
We need a scapegoat, right?
|
|
Posted by LOL X3, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Oct 4, 2008 at 10:56 am oops, double post.
:\
Sorry.
|
|
|
| |
|
Send this story
Print this story
