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The Los Altos School District is drafting a team of district residents and community members to weigh in on whether a new campus in the San Antonio area of Mountain View should be a neighborhood school or a permanent site for Bullis Charter School.
And while the full details on what the new committee will discuss — including traffic, costs of construction and changes in school attendance boundaries — are still being worked out, district administrators made clear at the Jan. 22 board meeting that they aren’t interested in a formal recommendation on how to best use the school site.
The new Site Advisory Task Force is intended to be a crucial part of the public outreach and transparency that district officials and school board members promised to include in the process of opening a new school in Mountain View. Work to buy land for a school has gone on for years, but school board members have yet to decide on what kind of school will actually be placed on the site.
In December, the Los Altos district announced plans to buy 8.6 acres of land on the corner of San Antonio Road and California Street, which includes the shuttered Safeway and Old Mill office building. The school could be home to a new neighborhood school serving the district’s Mountain View residents living near the San Antonio Shopping Center, or it could be a permanent site for Bullis Charter School, which draws students from throughout the district and beyond. Other options, including a two-campus site with a magnet program, are also up for consideration.
Last week, Mountain View City Council members agreed to shell out $23 million in park funds to help ease the cost of buying land in the hot real estate market, which would also add much-needed public park space to the San Antonio Area. To make it even easier to finance the purchase, the council also permitted the school district to “sell” to developers rights to the unused density that would have been allowed on the Old Mill site. Purchasers would then be able to build more bigger, denser projects than otherwise allowed elsewhere in the city.
The district plans to sell 610,000 square feet of development rights — almost all of it for office projects — to the tune of $79.3 million.
After a lengthy debate, council members ultimately agreed to let the school district decide what kind of school to put on the San Antonio site, but conditioned the handsome financial incentives on the school district creating a transparent, public process for community involvement in determining the “service area” of the school.
A draft description of the district’s site advisory task force calls for it to be composed of eight people, including a Mountain View City Council member, a district resident living in the San Antonio area and a Mountain View resident living elsewhere in Mountain View — an acknowledgment that Mountain View residents throughout the city would bear the brunt of the major office projects that come from selling development rights, said board member Steve Taglio at the Monday meeting.
The task force’s work will “culminate in a report” to the board outlining “robust data and its analysis of the educational and community benefits” of each type of school that could be built in the San Antonio area, but it falls short of asking for an actual recommendation.
Superintendent Jeff Baier confirmed at the Jan. 22 board meeting that the board would not be receiving a recommendation from its new task force, which is typically the primary role of an advisory committee.
Baier even expressed uneasiness with the idea of the advisory board coming back with pros and cons for each type of school that could be placed on the Mountain View site, and said that data analysis should be the primary focus of the task force.
Board members generally agreed that the task force meetings should be well-publicized, with agendas and video recordings, but some trustees had reservations about the proposed roster. Board member Sangeeth Peruri said there ought to be representation from the district’s largest fundraiser, the Los Altos Education Foundation, along with a member of the district’s Citizens’ Advisory Committee for Finance.
Board president Vladimir Ivanovic said he was uncomfortable with having a parent representative from Bullis Charter School on the task force.
“I don’t think Bullis Charter School should be on this task force,” he said. “They clearly don’t have the long-term interests of the district in mind.”
Baier told the Voice in an email that the task force would weigh important data and information about demographics, enrollment, traffic and the district’s education programs in the context of the Old Mill site, all of which would help the board make a decision that’s “rooted in the community’s values that ensures educational equity for all students and long-term stability for the district.”
He said the district already gave the community a chance to examine the data up close through the prior Enrollment Priorities Task Force, but that analysis is pretty dated and ought to be looked at again.
“We believe that our decision must be firmly rooted in all of the feedback, data and analysis that we have received since 2012, while (also) honoring our new partnership with the city of Mountain View,” Baier said.
Two board members, Ivanovic and Taglio, agreed to pull together a full list of topics that the task force could explore. Baier told trustees that a final document spelling out the roster and goals of the task force would come to the board at the next meeting.
Need the LASD say more? So much MV Councilman Clark for having an open process, where the “preference” for a local neighborhood school may be transparently advanced by Mountain View parents/residents.
Bullis has been a thorn in LASD’s side for years. They would love nothing more than to dump them off on MV. If the city of MV is shelling out any money and trading development rights, then a neighborhood school should be put on this land.
We all live in this community and a strong public school system benefits everyone. Like all parents, we want to see Measure N funding distributed throughout all the schools in the district, instead of just one site. By reconfiguring an existing school site, we will be able to save money we would otherwise spend purchasing land, so that we can make much needed improvements at every school in the district. The majority of LASD voters don’t even want to purchase new land. It’s even less desirable when you realize LASD will have to spend upwards of a million dollars and an additional 3-5 years to go through the eminent domain process because the landowners at the Old Mill/ Safeway don’t want to sell. LASD trustees can continue to explore new land purchase options, but we want the district to provide the best possible existing land option as a benchmark, so we can compare the two and find the best solution for all our students.
Per usual, LASD sets the wrong premise…. and any “committee” appointed by them is really just a shill to later point to the entire premise laid out– for a 10th site. LASD completely ignores the taxpayers’ demand that bond money be spent on existing schools (particularly with LASD’s declining enrollment, but BCS’ expanding enrollment.) Remember the “enrollment growth task force” where the premise was enrollment growth in LASD schools? The premise was faulty. There was and is no enrollment growth in LASD schools– in fact it’s a huge decline in K-5, and LASD saw that coming, but they set up these “citizen committees” with a faulty premise as a propaganda tool. It’s a total waste of money and is a delay tactic. Jeff Baier and Randy Kenyon should be fired for their complete failure in designing a solution.
BCS at 900 students is too big for the site, so BCS will have to exist on another LASD campus too, anyway. Proposition 39, that LASD must comply with at the end of 5 years, calls for over 22 acres for BCS students given LASD’s declining enrollment and BCS’ expanding enrollment. NEC may need and be long overdue for a neighborhood or charter school, but LASD’s desire to delay and waste taxpayer monies does nothing to serve the students of LASD. LASD cannot use bond money on eminent domain litigation, so OTHER operating resources will have to be used to file that litigation–more waste– do I hear taxpayer waste action agains LASD to stop this nonsense?
We believe that our decision must be firmly rooted in all of the feedback, data and analysis that we have received since 2012, while (also) honoring our new partnership with the city of Mountain View,” Baier said.
What specific feedback, data, and analysis is Baier referring to? And, what value does 6-year old data provide? All of the kids in Kindergarten back then will be out of High School by the time any school is built.
I must give a hat tip to the ultra-generic “honoring our new partnership.” Did they not have a partnership before? What is this new partnership? What does honoring it look like?
Between MV City Council placing no restrictions on this effort despite providing the majority of the funding, Baier’s vague comments, and this so-called Task Force responsible for nothing but keeping the LASD elected officials from having to deal with concerned citizens face-to-face, I can pretty much guarantee they will decide to not place a neighborhood school there. (Even though it’s the only logical answer).
Isn’t it time to recall the LASD Board? Their ongoing poor(non-transparent) decisions have made it more than clear that the do NOT have the best interests of Los Altos residents nor Mountain View residents at heart. They are a self-serving group that seem to delight in fueling the LASD/BCS feud. As a taxpayer, I’m tired of funding the feud. This whole plan is absolutely ridiculous starting with the lack of need for a new site at all and continuing through the plans to poorly place a school on a very busy intersection to house students, not from the neighborhood, but from households miles away. Just so that the LASD BOD can stick it to BCS. Which will of course, only bring on more litigation w BCS that the LA residents will pay for. Let’s oust the LASD BOD. They’re worse than worseless!
Typo- I meant they are worse than worthless!
It makes no practical sense in starting a “recall” campaign, which almost never succeeds. However – there is a General Election coming for the Los Altos School Board, and concentrating early effort on one new good candidate, can start to turn things. Last election, there seemed to be a concerted effort “to slate” the election to preclude, again, a candidate from the North of El Camino fraction of the LASD. Or did I, as a MV citizen, misread that political situation?
The superintendent must be removed. He has spent years deceiving the parents.
I have been watching this debacle for many years, including many years closely involved on behalf of LAH. It’s been almost 15 years now fighting this battle, and what incredible waste of time and money along the way. The problem would have been solved in year 1 if the LASD Board had more common sense, and less self interest—and simply sited BCS on some of the overabundant acres already controlled by the district.
Years and years later, after $Millions in legal fees and $150M toward inexplicable bonds, we are really no closer to a solution than we were on day 1.
Shame on LASD Boards over the last 15 years for creating this problem then letting it linger and linger, all the while with a solution under their noses.
Shame on the voters of LA, LAH, and MV for voting in nearly identical board members election after election, and so far wasting $150M on bonds, which were never tied to an actual plan anyway. What did we expect?
Shame on the LA City Council for never stepping up to be part of a solution for our whole community (eg Hillview or other). Our schools are our greatest community asset, but the LA City Council has been looking the other way for years.
Kudos to the MV City Council for potentially stepping up in a big way toward a solution. They just should realize that for all their effort and money, they better require a new school in MV that MV children can actually attend—ie a neighborhood public school (or maybe an attendance area preference for BCS—we have heard of that concept before…).
LASD is gearing up to place BCS at a new site in MV, which would certainly be ironic, since the priority for neighborhood public education is what got us into this mess in the first place (think founding of BCS after closing of Bullis-Purrisima in LAH) and what has kept us in this mess for almost 15 years (LASD Board unwilling to close or share any neighborhood schools to house BCS…).
@Bart -I agree with most everything you’ve said except your suggestion that LA City Council should be donating Hillview to the LASD cause. Hillview is an important community asset- for ALL LA residents, not just those that reside within the LASD and should not be sacrificed to the LASD debacle when they have plenty of their own land. LASD has many solutions to their problems none of which require extra land. When considering a new school for NEC we must realize that we have neither the funds nor the enrollment to administrate an 11th elementary school. So if a new school NEC is opened, Covington MUST be closed. Which actually makes sense because that school could be given to BCS in its entirety and that campus has room for the 1000 kids enrolled.
And lets not forget that moving the 6th graders to Blach & Egan solves any overcrowding issue that might arise in the future.
Thank you for reading my comments. You make all good points, whether we differ a little here or there.
It would be EXTREMELY inconvenient for us if we had to deal with the traffic in that area. Please do not put Bullis there. It’s also on the East side of ECR, so…
I don’t think Bullis parents see much difference at all in Traffic in driving to school. They already have to cross most of LASD to reach the current main site. It’s already inconvenient. This is nothing new. They also get caught currently in a mess of traffic directed at Egan, which serves 60% of the Junior High students in LASD traditional programs. Bullis staggers arrivals at multiple times and encourages carpooling. It’s more practical for Bullis parents to carpool than it is for Egan students. This location is NOT MUCH OF A CHANGE for Bullis Charter–being only 1/3 of a mile further down San Antonio Road.
But what we need to keep in mind is that there are a large and growing number of students doing the opposite travel. They live on the North side of El Camino Real in Mountain View or Palo Alto, and they must travel to 4 different schools in Los Altos with no bus service being provided.
The least LASD could do is to provide bus service if it is not going to open a nearby school for these children. That’s a reason to be concerned, not some mythical non-change for Bullis.
It’s the traffic — Don’t you understand. We can’t possibly share our 16+ acres with another school — we have enough traffic as it is. Traffic is much better sent to crowded Mountain View – they are more used to it there. Plus their houses are cheaper, they didn’t pay for a neighborhood school.
Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are from Mountain View. I know for a fact that they love, love, love driving here every day — who wouldn’t! We are happy to share with them , they don’t actually want their own school, after all they are in Mountain View, so they are happy to come up town to LA. They get the best school with out really paying for it, which is great for them.
Plus without ourCrossings families we wouldn’t have enough students and BCS might get our school — then we would have to go back to Springer, which is in Mountain View, in tract homes, not really our style. Better to send traffic through Los Altos and into Mountain View ( and from MV to LA) than to suffer attending school in MV. It’s okay for them to come here but I paid big bucks for my house and I deserve to attend school in LA.
The action taken by the Mountain View City Cpuncil on January 16 was to move forward. No final decision has been made. It is still possible that a majority of the Council will vote to halt or condition the deal so that the new school is not BULLIS CHARTER.
It is revealing and alarming that most Los Altos residents who have paid attention know darn well that the plan of the LASD administration and trustees is to move BULLIS CHARTER to Mountain View but no one on the Mountain View City Council knows or admits knowing anything of the sort.
Here’s the thing. LASD has been futzing around with the kids North of El Camino for 20 years now. Back in 2007, they came up with this then-new split to send 1/3 of them to Covington, instead of just splitting them between Almond and Santa Rita. Here’s a Voice article that documents this deliberation at the time: https://www.mv-voice.com/print/story/2007/04/27/fight-brews-over-school-boundaries
So, after 10 years, they are still planning to go on with this split, because it’s not time yet to open a neighborhood school there. For how much longer? It’s hard to understand how they got the city council to bless this continued mistreatment. Of course it will be 3 years or more before this new school can open. At that point the split will be 14 years old. Isn’t that time where there should finally be a local neighborhood school serving those closest to it? LASD is kind of contemplating its navel to be fantasizing otherwise. It really DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. There’s a lot more wrong with their process. It surely has not been open and transparent. It has been anything but. But just the reality of how long this has gone on is enough to motivate a NO to the idea of the city blessing the continuation!
From the 2007 article, one quote is very interesting.
“All Los Altos School District children deserve a neighborhood school,” parent Nancy Morimoto said. “If you lived where we live, how would you feel about taking your kids to the fourth-closest school?”
Again, 11 years ago.