Los Altos Hills residents want their own school, and it looks like they will get it without having to create their own district.
A 16-member “redistricting alternative working group,” made up of school district and Bullis charter school representatives and Hills council members, met last Wednesday to begin negotiating for a way to bring a K-8 school to Los Altos Hills and avoid creating a new school district.
“We’re finding a way to treat the Hills like the Hills, not like two halves of the Hills,” said Duncan MacMillan, who chairs the Los Altos Hills Public Education Committee.
“I think everybody gave the impression that they wanted to fix something and we’ll see what they’re able to do,” he added.
Three weeks ago, the Los Altos Hills City Council voted unanimously to form its own K-8 school district that would send all its high schoolers to the Palo Alto Unified School District. The move, if acted upon, could cost the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District $3.7 million in tax revenue and its nearly 200 Los Altos Hills students.
However, the first negotiations between all the parties — the Los Altos Hills City Council, three local school districts and representatives from Bullis charter school — indicate that an alternative long-term solution is possible.
A resolution that did not involve redistricting and pulling students out of Mountain View and Los Altos high schools would not impact the high school district.
The compromise will most likely involve both the Bullis-Purissima campus — which Los Altos School District closed in 2003 — and Bullis Charter School, but negotiators are not providing more details until they establish a plan. Their recommendations will then return to each community for public comment.
“We’ve got the makings of an agreement but we don’t have an agreement yet,” said Mark Goines, Los Altos School District board member who is participating in the negotiations.
Mountain View-Los Altos Superintendent Rich Fischer, who opposes redistricting because of the impact it would have on the high school district, said after the meeting that he is now “cautiously optimistic” about negotiations.
Along with their decision to pursue redistricting, members of the Los Altos Hills City Council also approved a 30-day period for negotiations, which will end on April 27. Participants in the working group will hold their next meeting April 20, and bring recommendations back to their respective boards for discussion after that.
If Los Altos Hills decides to create its own K-8 district, it would submit an application to the county after the April 27 council meeting. The plan would require state approval and could appear on the ballot in 2007 or 2008.
In addition to removing funding and students from Mountain View-Los Altos, the plan would also cost the Los Altos School District about $5.6 million and remove its shaky basic aid status, according to the district’s assistant superintendent for business services, Randy Kenyon.
E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com
