Posted by Very Happy former MV Slater school parent, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Sep 3, 2009 at 2:58 pm

Yet again I read news about the Mountain View Whisman School District's struggle to deal with the consequences of their decision to close Slater School because of declining enrollments. We are extremely happy with the parochial school alternative we discovered as a result of Slater's closing. We are part of a school and community that takes accurate data projections very seriously and makes rational decisions to address matters.

I hope all other former Slater families are as well off as mine now.

Posted by parent, a resident of the Martens-Carmelita neighborhood, on Sep 3, 2009 at 3:07 pm

We have SEVERAL new families that recently moved to our neighborhood, at least 12 or so young (eg preschool) children. I'd like the Voice to clarify the process by which the district obtains their enrollment projections.

Posted by Another parent, a resident of another community, on Sep 3, 2009 at 4:06 pm

To Very Happy former MV Slater parent -- does the parochial school have to take everyone who applies? Even if the number of school kids increases unexpectedly in a year, they have a limited number of slots and are not legally obligated to let everyone in, so their "accurate data projections" are not quite the same as for a public district. The private schools can just add more kids to the waitlist or turn them down. They aren't required to find space for them.

To Parent - the district hires professional demographers to do their projections, at least when they closed Slater they did. I'm sure they don't do it every year, it costs money. So they'll be criticized for overspending if they do it every year, and if they do the best they can without one, they are criticized for not doing accurate projections. No-win situation.

Did you see the Town Crier article today about LASD? They just re-opened Gardner Bullis as a K-6 last year and re-drew school boundaries, a great source of conflict, because of increasing enrollment. This year the Kinder enrollment dropped through the floor. I think they (the public districts) are always chasing a moving target regarding enrollments.

Posted by CT, a resident of the Sylvan Park neighborhood, on Sep 3, 2009 at 8:46 pm

thank you kelsey for keeping us informed about the District topic tonight! Are there minutes available somewhere to see the content of the discussion? Would like to know anything about the effects of the change to Basic Aid (e.g., effect on current interdistrict transfers, estimates of prior funding compared to new funding under Basic Aid, etc.)Much appreciated!

Posted by ben, a resident of the Monta Loma neighborhood, on Sep 4, 2009 at 10:09 am

That all we need is more Parochial Schools to indoctrinate children in religious myths, now considered by more people as child abuse considering what problems religion is causing in the world!