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The Los Altos School District is asking voters to approve a $350 million bond measure on this November’s ballot, with the money expected to fund a combination of improvements to existing schools and new construction on a Mountain View property the district bought for a new school site several years ago.
The school board voted 4-1, with Vladimir Ivanovic dissenting, at a Monday, Aug. 5, meeting to put the measure on the Nov. 5 general election ballot. It will require 55% support to pass. Polling the district has conducted suggests that support for a potential bond is hovering around the required 55%.
The measure would authorize the district to issue $350 million in bonds, with an average annual expected cost to property owners of $30 per $100,000 of assessed value. The total debt service, which includes the interest paid on the bonds, is estimated at $730.8 million, according to the ballot materials that the district has prepared.
The district plans to use the bond proceeds mostly to pay for upgrades to current schools, with some funds going towards construction on a piece of land in Mountain View that the district bought in 2019, which is often referred to as the “10th school site.” The school board has not yet decided how it would divvy up the bond money between existing schools and 10th site construction.
That decision is expected as part of an update to the district’s facilities master plan that is underway. The board heard a presentation last week about the facilities master plan that included three scenarios for spending bond money, ranging from setting aside roughly $50 million to $145 million for the 10th site. School board President Bryan Johnson told the Voice the plan is for the board to vote on the facilities master plan in September, which would include a decision on how much bond money to set aside for the 10th site.
What kind of school to build on the 10th site has been an open question in the district since the land was purchased. The district has advocated for Bullis Charter School to be housed at a new campus at the 10th site, a suggestion that the charter school has pushed back against.
The district is considering options ranging from a 900 student school to simply demolishing the existing buildings on the site and constructing adjacent public facilities, but holding off on building an actual school.
The update to the facilities master plan includes a prioritized list of changes that the district wants to make at existing campuses if the bond is approved. These include upgrading heating and cooling systems, making roofing repairs, updating classroom AV equipment and renovating the district’s two junior high schools so that they can accommodate sixth graders. The district currently has sixth graders attend its elementary schools, but wants to switch to a model where middle school is sixth through eighth grade.
At Monday’s meeting, Ivanovic was the one board member to oppose putting the bond measure on the ballot. Ivanovic said he was voting “no” because the bond proposal “privileges” Bullis Charter School over the district’s schools. He opposed spending money on constructing a school at the 10th site for Bullis.
“I’m not against bond measures. I think we need a bond measure for upgrading our facilities,” Ivanovic said. “I’m against spending our bond measure money on BCS.”
Other board members pushed back on Ivanovic’s arguments. Johnson noted that the new school is in the most populous part of the district, and that the discussion is only about placing Bullis there in the short-to-medium term.
“We’re not handing over the keys in perpetuity to BCS,” Johnson said. “I expect that probably will be an LASD school sometime in the future, as things change.”
“The school board has not yet decided how it would divvy up the bond money between existing schools and 10th site construction.”
Although technically true, only the $145M option would build a 900 student school on the 10th site. The reality is that the decision to put 900 Bullis Charter students on the 10th site has already been made; it just hasn’t been completely formalized.
My feeling is that these salami tactics* are less than above board. The LASD Board will put Bullis on the 10th site — the neighborhood preference required by the City of Mountain View be damned — and LASD will never pry Bullis off of what will be the newest and best campus in LASD.
The kicker, of course, is that the voters in the District are being asked to foot the bill. BTW, don’t be fooled by “Oh, the bond measure includes $200M to upgrade LASD facilities.” That provision was only added well after planning and some site work on the 10th site had started, and it represents only one-quarter of facilities needs of LASD schools. It’s meant to lure voters into approving the bond measure.
As written, voters are being asked to spend $161,000 per Bullis student and $58,500 per LASD student. Please do vote for the bond measure if you think this is right thing to do. I plan to vote “No” and I hope you do too.
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* Wikipedia defines salami tactics as, “the practice of using a series of many small actions to produce a much larger action or result that would be difficult or unlawful to perform all at once.”