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After years of deliberations, the Los Altos School District plans to finalize designs within the next month for a new campus in Mountain View. What the district hasn’t figured out yet is what school to put there – a decision that’s likely to be contentious.
Earlier this month, district staff presented schematic designs for a 607 student TK-8 school, with dedicated spaces for younger and older kids, two outdoor play areas and a library. District officials intend to bring the plans back to the board on Oct. 13 for approval.
At this same meeting, administrators might also bring recommendations on which school to move to the new site, but Assistant Superintendent Erik Walukiewicz said it’s too early to tell if they will be able to make that decision in the next couple of weeks.
The district plans to start construction on the campus, which is located within Mountain View’s San Antonio Shopping Center, next spring and finish it by fall 2028, Walukiewicz said. There is no specific timeline for when the district will decide what to put there, but Walukiewicz said he thinks the choice will be made before construction begins.
The district originally purchased the 11.7 acre plot, often referred to as the “10th site,” in December 2019 in the hopes of addressing overcrowding on its campuses and finding a solution to the divisive issue of where to house Bullis Charter School. Progress stalled, however, as the result of strong disagreements in the community about what school should go there, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The current plans call for building a two-story school with three main buildings that would include 29 classrooms, plus administrative offices and a library. The campus would also have separate buildings for a gym and multipurpose room, as well as outdoor areas.
Building a TK-8 site will give staff “maximum flexibility,” Walukiewicz said. While the campus is being designed to accommodate both elementary and middle school students, the classrooms are versatile and could serve kids of varying ages.
“There’s lots of moving parts, but we’re excited,” Walukiewicz said. “This project has been a long time coming. We’re really making some great progress in the last year.”
District officials are not planning on opening an entirely new school, he said. The Los Altos School District’s student body has shrunk 16% since the pandemic, dropping from 3,999 students in 2019 to 3,370 last fall.
Instead, the district is considering moving an existing district school to the new campus or relocating Bullis Charter school there. Both ideas have sparked substantial controversy in the past.
In 2019, the school district announced plans to move Egan Junior High School to the 10th site, and to give Egan’s current campus to Bullis. That prompted anger in the community, with parents protesting outside of Egan and showing up in large numbers at board meetings to oppose the plan. Ultimately, the district backed off the idea and postponed the decision.
Since then, district officials have publicly said that they want to move Bullis to the new site, an idea charter school leaders have rejected.
Last year, Bullis Superintendent Maureen Israel said that the 10th site is too small for Bullis, which has more students than any of the district’s schools and is the only one to span transitional kindergarten through eighth grade. Currently, Bullis is split between the Egan and Blach junior high school campuses.
When asked about the district’s current plans for the San Antonio site, Israel this week declined to comment on the specifics.
“Bullis Charter School draws students from all over the district and is happy with our current setup, which we have made our home for the last 10+ years, and have no plans to change,” Israel wrote in an email to the Voice.
With nearly 1,000 students last school year, Bullis would significantly exceed the 607 student capacity that the district is currently planning for the campus. Walukiewicz said it’s too early to answer how Bullis would be expected to fit on the new site if selected.
At a Sept. 8 board meeting, district trustees reviewed the schematic designs, asking questions and providing feedback on the plans. Trustee Vladimir Ivanovic took issue with the claim that the district hasn’t picked which school to move there.
“I think it’s disingenuous to say that we haven’t decided to put Bullis Charter there because the fact (is) we have,” he said.
Administrators and other trustees disagreed with Ivanovic, emphasizing that all options were still being considered.
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