The push to redraw school district lines in Los Altos Hills has been postponed for a least a month as officials consider a delicate and complex agreement devised by two Hills council members.
The Los Altos Hills City Council narrowly approved the redistricting reprieve on Thursday, giving the Los Altos school board the chance to formally endorse the proposed agreement in June. Following the board’s decision, the Hills council is expected to either pursue or abandon redistricting at its June 8 meeting.
“This is sure as hell better than what we have now,” council member Craig Jones said of the proposed compromise. “If I’m wrong, I will not only vote for redistricting, I will help lead the campaign for redistricting.”
Jones collaborated with Mayor Breene Kerr in negotiating the possible settlement.
If successful, the agreement ends two long-disputed issues between the town and the district: The Bullis-Purissima Elementary School campus on Fremont Road in Los Altos Hills will be reopened, and the Bullis Charter School — currently situated in Los Altos — will be relocated to the site.
The charter school could occupy at the new site as early as December 2007.
The dispute stems from the 2003 closure of the Bullis-Purissima Elementary campus by the Los Altos school board, which was operating the Los Altos Hills school. It has been characterized by venomous rhetoric, political wrangling, costly lawsuits and a failed attempt at mediation.
Over the last two years, redistricting gained support as a way to bypass Los Altos School District financial constraints, which the district said prohibited reopening a public school in the Hills.
Some residents, however, opposed redistricting because they feared it would uproot children from their current schools.
Students and dollars
The stakes are high. Los Altos Hills is divided among the Palo Alto Unified School District, Los Altos School District and Mountain View-Los Altos High School District. If Los Altos Hills were to secede and form its own K-8 district, Mountain View-Los Altos could stand to lose almost 200 kids to Palo Alto Unified.Also at stake: $3.7 million for Mountain View-Los Altos; up to $6 million for the Palo Alto school district and $5.6 million for Los Altos School District.
As part of the agreement, the Los Altos district has promised to kick in up to $18 million to rebuild the Bullis-Purissima campus, said Jones, a former charter school chairman.
“We might have to borrow some money. We are willing to do that,” Los Altos school board member Mark Goines confirmed.
Palo Alto schools have also agreed to chip in money, but not nearly as much. The district could give the charter school approximately $5,000 per student if the Los Altos district — which is currently a revenue-limit district that receives state funding per student — turns to the basic aid model, which derives the majority of its funds from property taxes.
“We’ll pay that per amount for students from the Hills who want the option to go to school in the Hills,” said Palo Alto school board president Mandy Lowell.
Lowell explained the $5,000 would “make it more revenue neutral” since the Los Altos school district would lose state funding for each student attending the charter school.
The charter school could grow by to 380 to 480 students under terms set with the Los Altos School District.
The agreement also involves giving preference to children living in Los Altos Hills to attend the charter school, which would require approval from the county and state boards of education. The council is asking all three districts to sign letters of support for “geographic preference,” a request some say is the first of its kind.
Despite a framework supposedly endorsed by all three districts, the council barely supported the delay. Kerr and Jones were joined by council member Mike O’Malley. Council members Jean Mordo and Dean Warshawsky dissented.
Warshawsky, who at past meetings was not ready to endorse redistricting, did not see the agreement as a viable option.
“I think it would be much cleaner to let the citizens vote,” he said. “If it goes one way or the other, the people decide.”
Mordo also was not moved. “I think this term sheet gives us nothing,” he said.
Uphill battle
Were the council to support redistricting on June 8, the process could take several years. It would also require a ballot measure with two-thirds majority approval from voters in Los Altos Hills. The measure could also require votes from residents in the districts that would lose revenue.A study conducted by an independent research firm in 2004 concluded that a ballot measure would struggle to pass in Los Altos Hills, but support for redistricting has allegedly swelled in some circles.
Lowell denied allegations that the threat of redistricting was the only way to leverage an agreement among districts.
“We have been at the table,” she said. “The problem was we couldn’t put on the table what the Hills was requesting, which was the Bullis site.”
She said the issue for the district was not about money, but about the parents who moved to the district because they wanted their children to attend Palo Alto schools.
“We have very strongly expressed the view that there are many people content with the status quo,” she said. “Redistricting would have been a multi-year fight, dividing neighbor against neighbor in Los Altos Hills.”
Lauren McSherry is a staff writer for the Palo Alto Weekly, the Voice’s sister paper.
