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Facing public outcry over a district proposal that would reduce the number of elective periods for middle schoolers, Mountain View Whisman’s school board members agreed this week to take a formal vote on whether to change the middle school bell schedule, rather than leaving the decision up to district staff.
District officials are looking to switch from offering eight to seven periods at Graham and Crittenden middle schools starting this fall. The new schedule would mean more time for core subjects and would add a weekly advisory period where students could receive instruction on social and emotional skills.
It would also mean that most students would get to take two electives at a time, rather than three under the current system. That has prompted heated pushback from some parents and students, who object to the loss of elective time. Some also oppose longer block periods that would be added two days a week.
At a Thursday, April 18, board meeting, roughly two dozen members of the public turned out in person for the board’s discussion of the schedule proposal. Some held up mini whiteboards with messages for the board including “kids need electives,” “reject the proposal” and “no to bad faith proposal.”
Sixteen people – in person and via Zoom – addressed the board during time set aside for public comment. The vast majority opposed the change.
Christine Case-Lo told the board that she was concerned about the “move backward” to seven periods, and particularly the effect it will have on students with disabilities and those learning English.
“Electives increase engagement in education for all students, but most especially at-risk students,” Case-Lo said. “These classes offer an opportunity for inclusion and exploration that many special education and ELL students desperately need.”
Some parents described the decision as premature and lacking in transparency.
Deciding to take a vote
All five board members agreed that they should schedule a vote on the change.
“To not vote on an item where we have so much community interest and it is clearly a significant change for everybody in the district, is just completely irresponsible,” board member Bill Lambert said. “This needs to be a voting item.”
The proposal originally came to the board at a March 14 meeting, when Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph presented a report from a committee that had been tasked with considering changes to the middle school schedule.
At that meeting, the item was listed for board review and discussion, rather than formal action. No members of the public turned out to speak on the topic and board members appeared generally supportive of the plan.
It turned out that many parents and students didn’t learn about the potential change until after that meeting. When they did, sizable opposition mounted, including an online petition that has picked up over 700 signatures as of Friday, April 19.
School board members subsequently requested that the topic come back to them, letting them decide next steps.
Explaining the rationale for the decision
At this week’s meeting, Rudolph gave the most detailed public explanation to date of the district’s rationale for changing the schedule.
He described the schedule change as being driven by teachers, with the goal of helping students improve academically and feel a greater sense of belonging at school. Rudolph presented standardized testing data that showed student performance dropping since the pandemic, compared to consistent increases in the years preceding the 2020 school closures.
He also shared survey results that showed students self-reporting lower opinions of their schools in 2023 than they did in 2020, and parents reporting less satisfaction with the district’s programs.
Rudolph described Mountain View Whisman as an outlier in offering three electives, and showed the board middle school bell schedules from nearby districts, including Sunnyvale, Los Altos and Palo Alto, all of which offer fewer electives.
“We want to make sure that our students can compete,” Rudolph said. “Many of our local students enroll together in the high school district.”
Link between schedule changes and cost savings draws parents’ ire
A part of Rudolph’s presentation that drew particular ire from parents, and concern from some school board members, was his link between the schedule change and cost savings.
The switch to seven periods would mean that the district would need eight fewer teachers, which would save $1.2 million annually. This staffing reduction would not involve layoffs, but would instead be achieved through not rehiring teachers who leave the district, Rudolph said.
The district recently reached a tentative three-year contract with its teachers union, which is pending board approval. According to Rudolph, paying for the raises included in that agreement was based on switching to the new bell schedule.
If the current schedule remains, Rudolph said that the district may need to reopen negotiations, make cuts in other areas or dip into its reserves.
Rudolph laid out a number of financial constraints the district is currently facing. Among them, the potential for $3 million in lost lease revenue due to Google’s plans to shut down its child care centers, including two that are leased from the school district.
According to Rudolph, the district was already looking at ways to make cuts to offset Google’s lease revenue when the schedule committee brought its proposal to shift to seven periods. Combined with $2.5 million in cost savings the district office had already found, Rudolph said that the schedule presented an opportunity to avoid having to make further budget cuts.
Rudolph acknowledged at the meeting that these cuts hadn’t previously been talked about publicly.
“I know we discussed this behind the scenes, but it’s not something that we wanted to talk about, because we don’t always discuss the fiscal climate with everyone,” Rudolph said. “There’s no need to cause worry if we can address this ourselves.”
Some parents objected to tying the schedule change to budget savings, and to the fact that this rationale hadn’t been publicly disclosed previously.
“This thing has morphed from a teacher initiative to a district budget savings initiative, without any transparency for the public,” Nancy Achter told the board.
Board members Chris Chiang and Lambert both raised concerns about linking the schedule to the budget.
“I am a bit alarmed by all this talk about the money. I feel like that should have been decoupled,” Chiang said.
If the district does go ahead with the new schedule, Chiang said it should still make the decision separately from any financial consideration.
On the other hand, board member Laura Blakely said that while she wished she could ignore the question of money, it wasn’t possible to fully disconnect. If the schedule change isn’t made, Blakely said she isn’t sure what other cuts to make instead.
Board members appeared to differ somewhat on their positions on the schedule change itself.
Chiang said that he wouldn’t support it unless certain conditions were met, including a survey of teachers to gauge their support.
Blakely described the proposal as “workable,” but said she’d like the district to take time to get more feedback on potential improvements.
“I’m in favor of it now, but I would like to see some changes and have it come back a little more fleshed out,” Blakely said.
Concerns about a lack of transparency
Board members generally expressed concern with the lack of clear communication about the schedule change earlier in the process.
Board President Devon Conley described the issues with the process as an “unforced error” in which the district missed the window to get community input.
Even though this process started with a committee of teachers and administrators, Conley said the district should still have followed the more thorough public engagement process it uses for decisions that are made by the board.
“When it’s something that’s this impactful, we need to be following that whole process in how we’re engaging the public, and how everyone is having a voice in the way decisions are made and developed,” Conely said.
Board member Laura Ramirez Berman similarly said that there were many elements she wished district staff had presented to the board earlier.
“What we’re hearing from our community is that they haven’t had enough time to give their input and their voices haven’t been heard,” Berman said. “That’s, I think, really critical in this process.”
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Probably should have had one parent meeting, but other than that, anything else is basically parental micromanagement. Let the staff run their schools. This would never happen at a high-performing private school. The parents trust the staff to figure out what the right programming is.
It’s interesting to see the benchmark data be used to suggest MVWSD should operate just like neighboring schools, when in fact the additional elective availability is something that has actually kept some families enrolled in the district vs enrolling in local private schools that don’t have the same elective options in grade 6-8. It’s a competitive advantage for MVWSD to keep offering what they do in the middle schools.
As for the financial issue, there are other ways to close gaps, and – big surprise here – strong, positive community engagement is a great way to get people excited about helping close those gaps in constructive ways that will absolutely require voter and/or donor outreach. MVWSD has some wonderful things that are here because of that kind of engagement in the past.
Not having any insight into the valuations that parents face when evaluating schools for their children I would appreciate learning more about the elective aspect and how that impacts your decision of public vs. private, and what value you feel comes out of have more (or fewer) electives available.
That’s the biggest cost savings! Rudolph drives 100 kids out of the district and into private schools, and think how much he saves!!!!
When there is a GIANT uncommitted reserve for fiscal uncertainly (10X the amount that the Superintendent now ‘wants to save’) there is no need to do this precipitously. The SKY is Not Falling! The SKY is Not Falling!
Does it seem – with the same class schedule occurring over the period of
‘increasing dissatisfaction’ and ‘lower opinions’ that is IS NOT IN ANYWAY CONNECTED with the number of periods. The period number is a Constant. That is not “now causing” dissatisfaction and lower options!
Trustee Blakely – again supports the administration. ‘Whatever’ / same old /same old/
Perhaps they could find some money by cutting back on the fencing projects.
I’m sure they (Board majority) could find an easy $50,000 by canceling the second half of Leadership Team $1,100 per session ‘meditation’ benefit.
[only 2 more Trustees would need to join Trustee Chiang in voting “Nay” on this, I personally think the Superintendent can give up his one-on-one session times]
BTW – the next discussion of this at Board Meeting just posted over the weekend [good administering with Plenty of Public Meeting warning ]
May 2: https://mvwsd.novusagenda.com/AgendaPublic/MeetingView.aspx?MeetingID=234&MinutesMeetingID=-1&doctype=Agenda
It is interesting to read the submitted public comments, some which go into much detail on the timelines. Why is the Superintendent’s staff redacting public commenter’s Names? This IS Public Information! People sign these letters, with their names at the end – Just Because They Want to be on the Public Record. Note – the City redacts email-contact only and not residents’ names when they enter-the-public-arena and send in written correspondence.
Nobody wants forced weekly SEL classes in lieu of a 3rd elective class option. [Portion removed]