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Bullis Charter School officials are expected to submit a petition next month proposing to create a new charter school in the Mountain View Whisman School District, aimed specifically at serving lower-income families.
And while the petition will technically have to come before the district’s school board for approval, a lawyer for Mountain View Whisman told trustees last week that they have little grounds to deny the petition and warned that, if they do reject it, they could live to regret it.
The Sept. 20 board meeting served largely as a crash course in California charter school law, following surprising news earlier that Bullis Charter School officials plan to submit a petition to open a new campus in the district next fall. The new charter school is expected to serve 320 students from kindergarten through fifth grade. Enrollment would be tuition-free, with a preference given to children in the Mountain View Whisman district who qualify for free and reduced-price meals.
Bullis administrator Jennifer Anderson-Rosse, who is spearheading the application process, told board members that she hopes the board will authorize the charter once it’s submitted, and that there will be a “collaborative” relationship with the district in the future. Early outreach by Bullis staffers found that families are likely to give the new charter school a warm reception, she said.
“We are doing this because we feel confident that the parents residing in this school district want this school, as evidenced by the popular support and interest in this community,” she said.
But does the district really have much of a choice? Under California’s existing charter school law, the cards are indisputably stacked in favor of Bullis Charter School, said David Huff, an attorney hired by the district who spoke at the meeting. He said charter school law is still in its infancy and many components of it have been challenged in court, but the overarching theme is that the petition process — along with requirements for districts to provide “reasonably equivalent” facilities under Proposition 39 — show a bias in favor of charter schools.
“This body of law, as well as Proposition 39, are weighted to the charter schools,” Huff said. “They were drafted by charter school advocates and passed in a way that, while they certainly have checks and balances that give the school district some power in this process, the law is favored for the benefit of the charter schools.”
Under the state’s education code, the district has to move at breakneck speed to respond to the charter request, holding a public hearing within 30 days of receiving the petition and either granting or denying the petition within 60 days. The petition has more than a dozen components, and must include a clear plan for the academic model of the school, proof of teacher and parent interest, and a sound financial plan for keeping the school afloat.
While school districts are asked to consider the level of support from teachers, employees and parents during the review period, there’s really no teeth to it. Public sentiment is not a valid criteria for denial, Huff said.
“It doesn’t really have any meaning at all, and it’s unfortunate, frankly,” he said. “Even though you’re required to consider the level of your community support, the statute doesn’t allow you to use that for one of your bases to reject the petition.”
Earlier in the meeting, Mountain View Educators Association president Sean Dechter urged trustees not to support the charter petition when it comes before them, stating that it would hurt the district’s schools financially and lower enrollment — potentially eliminating teaching positions in the district. He also cautioned the district about potential legal battles, pointing to the history of litigation between Bullis and the Los Altos School District, where it operates a K-8 school.
If the school board decides to deny the charter petition, Bullis has other options. It could instead seek a charter with the county, similar to the arrangement between the existing Bullis Charter School in Los Altos and Santa Clara County’s Office of Education. If that fails, Bullis has a third option to go before the California State Board of Education. All three options could land a school within the district’s boundaries and put the onus on Mountain View Whisman to provide facilities.
Striking out does occasionally happen, as was the case earlier this month with a proposal put forward by Rocketship Public Schools to open a school in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Concerns raised by the Contra Costa County Board of Education included declines in charter school enrollment, questionable staffing proposals and little knowledge of the local education landscape in the East Bay. At least one of those aspects — the enrollment drops — is unlikely to be a factor in Bullis’ application.
Huff didn’t mince words explaining the situation: There has been a “very active” effort by charter school advocates to endorse and support candidates throughout the state who support the charter school movement, creating a situation where a charter school petition is likely to get approved by one of the three public agencies. By denying the charter, he said, the district would run the risk of losing the oversight role as the chartering agency, and wouldn’t be in a good position to inform the community about the charter school’s operation in the district.
“In general, most school districts that reject a charter school petition, that is thereafter approved by another authorizer — either the county or the state — end up regretting that decision,” he said. “Losing that oversight responsibility is often times determined to be, in hindsight, something they wish they didn’t do.”
After the meeting, Anderson-Rosse told the Voice that “every district is different,” and that she is confident the new school being proposed in the Mountain View Whisman School District will satisfy a need in the district rather than hinder district-run schools or displace teachers. Not only could the new school act as a much-needed release valve for the sizable enrollment increases projected in the coming years, but it could also serve the roughly 200 families in Mountain View currently on the waiting list to get into Bullis Charter School in Los Altos.
The charter school has held a half-dozen community outreach events over the last month informing Mountain View parents of the upcoming charter petition and soliciting feedback. The plan is to start small for the 2019-20 school year, with 168 students in kindergarten through second grade.
Plans for the new Mountain View school are entirely separate from the ongoing debate over where the existing Bullis Charter School will be housed within the Los Altos School District, including whether it would be a good fit in the San Antonio area of Mountain View.
My naive take on this is that the Bullis folks saw “Waiting for Superman” and decided that their lives’ work was to provide better options to disadvantaged kids stuck in low-performing schools. Meanwhile, my sentiments about MV Whisman School District are starkly influenced by its campaign to eliminate school choice, the startling antics of its board, and the steely authoritarianism of its leadership team.
What am I missing?
Just curious, for kids who qualified for FRPM in the Los Altos School District and wanted to take advantage of this new BCS in MVWSD, where would they go for 6th grade (since this newly proposed BCS in MVWSD only goes through 5th)?
Where would the school be located? Would we have to close a neighborhood school?
What kind of oversight would MVWSDBoard and Superintendent have over the charter school?
Charter school law provides safeguards so school boards and teachers’ unions won’t squash reasonable petitions without due cause. Charter schools can bring innovation and success to underserved students in ways that most larger districts have been unable to. Do we want to better serve our poorest performing students or protect our teachers’ unions? I choose to prioritize our students.
Interesting that in the recent candidates forum, Wheeler would not talk straight about BCS#2. Just recommended that you all listen to the lawyer talk to the school board. Really? And she did not want to talk straight about achievement gap, in her own district, but instead diverted to its seems – weasel wording a reply about the Los Altos and Mountain View average achievement differences.
Two of the candidates – seemed to answer the question in a straight forward manner. And the forth – gave essentially a different ‘non-answer’. Will the Mountain View district go into battle mode with BCS#2? Two candidates seem to be clearly saying “no battles” and two seemed to be weaseling out of an answer.
I seem to remember reading that battles between BCS#1 and Los Altos district cost millions of public school money. Does Mountain View district really have those ‘millions for war’?
I am 100% in favor of charter schools. The Mountain View School District is horrible in terms of giving parents choice. In fact, they just took away the ability to parents to send their kids to any other school other than their district one. No choice at all. Meanwhile, the test schools are terrible and the teachers are the highest paid in the nation.
Our teachers might be the highest paid (source?), but the insane cost of living here means their effective income is much lower than other counties and states. That Mountain View teachers can’t afford to live in Mountain View tells you everything you need to know about their wages. That said, I would like to better understand the Bullis plan.
The average pay for a grade school teacher in California is $61,590/year. This number is diminished by the sizable amount teachers spend (of their own money) for enrichment items in their classrooms. So…. before you make statements that are not backed up with FACTS, realize that people are going to check your statements and realize you are either misleading or plain wrong. If you are paid less than $62,000 a year, do you think that is sufficient for this area?
I have no argument with Charter Schools, as long as they are transparent in their decisions and reason for existence. I don’t want local public schools to financially suffer so Charters can exist. I personally know two families who were told that Bullis couldn’t “teach effectively to their child” and suggested they return to the public schools to access services – so at least Bullis IS selective about spending money on services for CERTAIN students (severe ADHD and autism spectrum).
Yes… a Charter has a right to come to Mountain View, but let’s make sure it’s not an excuse to isolate those children who are more needy emotionally or academically, for the express purpose to keep them out of the higher achieving Bullis.
I very much appreciate what our public school teachers are accomplishing – often under difficult and under-financed situations. They are stars in my book!
@MVwoman
Ok, in California the average pay is $61,590/year. But why this number is relevant? You should give the average pay for MVWSD, because we are talking about our district.
Here is the link: https://www.mvwsd.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_418774/File/District%20Business/Career%20and%20Staff/Compensation/201819Compensation/MVEA%20Salary%20Schedule%202018-2019%20%20Board%20Approved%206Sep2018.pdf
The range is from $63,980 to $114,705.
@Parent – the pay is not my major concern (except I don’t feel it’s sufficient for the area, considering the educational level of teachers). And as the AVERAGE pay in the state is under $62,000/year, you can bet the higher end you mention here, is not the norm.
My main concern in my comment, was the selective weeding out of students that would be more expensive to teach (ADHD and autism spectrum in the case of the two students I know) and also using that to keep Bullis achievement scores high.
To me – schools funded by taxpayers, should accept students without discriminating against emotional or educational special needs.
I’ve been a parent at BCS for 9 years, and I can tell you firsthand that BCS serves special needs kids. My daughter had an IEP, and I have no doubt that the program BCS provided her wasorders of magnitude superior to the one that would have been provided by our neighborhood LASD school. BCS has a community group for parents of kids with special needs. Perhaps the commenters here should first check in with these parents instead of ones who have left the BCS program. It’s illegal for BCS to turn away any student because of special needs. If they did this and it had any basis, you can be sure those parents would have sued BCS. Like any school, sometimes it’s not a fit for a family, and you have some people who are all sour grapes – that is just life, not discrimation.
Don’t discount a program that has been tremendously successful for thousands of students. BCS is currently at 880 students and growing. The waitlist is over 1000 kids. They must be doing something right to achieve these numbers. Parents in this area are highly discerning about educational options. They wouldn’t be sending their kids to a program if it was run unethically or not delivering high quality programming for students.
@ bullisparent
That’s great to hear, and might make this voter reconsider. So special needs kids got in, with no other considerations, and you didn’t even donate money? Please confirm that.
IEP = Individualized Educational Program
LEP = Limited English Proficiency
This proposed charter school gives an enrollment preference to LOW INCOME kids,
which means as part of the RANDOM (i.e. unbiased) lottery for admission, some number of openings are reserved for LOW INCOME status. It’s not affected by kids with LEP status or IEP status. It’s affected by LOW INCOME status.
In the entire country, states vary, but generally 10% to 13% of kids in each state have an IEP operating about their education.
Charter schools offer varied programs with bonus areas like Mandarin Language classes, or STEAM elements added to the state’s base expectations for learning. Also they offer extra time and activities to supplement to social emotional well being of the students. The general thought is that LOW INCOME kids miss out on some support that other students get from their home environment.
Now regarding IEP kids, general the idea about the moderately to severely impacted kids is only a portion of those with IEP’s. Say 80% of IEP cases are mild to moderate in scope, and they are served in with the regular classroom experience. But 20% of those on IEP’s require what is called Special Day Classes, in that they have an entire special classroom experience that is viewed as essential to their optimum performance. By definition they don’t spend more than a fraction of their time, if any, in the regular classroom setting. In most districts, the classes the need are not offered at every school. Some are even placed in outside schools that specialize in their situation, not even part of the district, but the district must pay. So it’s disingenuous to say that a charter school doesn’t serve SDC kids, because SDC is treated differently from the get go.
BCS is a public school with no tuition requirements. It is open to any and all students – Free and Reduced lunch, English learners and Special Needs. Because it is a charter and school of choice, it attracts a certain type of family – usually people who prioritize a different education model over the convenience of a neighborhood school. It also requires parents to fill out a registration sheet to qualify for the lottery (proof of residence, birth certificate, etc) and therefore on parents need to be organized enough to know when open enrollment process begins and ends. Other than that, it’s come one, come all.
Get ready Mountain View! This charter school is going to take our money, our land/school and sue the school district up the wazoo!
To the Bullis charter parent who said her child has an IEP and that any parent of a child with an IEP can go there….that’s not entirely true. First, how “severe” is your child’s IEP? A parent with a child with a IEP that has many “requirements” who not dare apply to the supposed PUBLIC charter school.
Of course, they say they are a public charter school but parents have to donate money and volunteer their time. You really think lower socio-economic parents can take time off of work to volunteer? I wonder where they are going to get all the money to fund this school…it will be us, the taxpayers.
We want full transparency and access to their financial records. They pick and choose what they want to disclose. This is not what a true PUBLIC school does.
Does anyone know that the proposed percentage set aside for FRLP children is? what percentage of the signed early supporters have FRLP eligile kids? Stevenson has a very difficult time recruiting FRLP kids, I’m curious how Bullis intends to do so.
So many questions in these last two comments which already have answers. First on this IEP issue. In MVWSD those children with severe IEP’s are restricted to a specific program. Most of the schools don’t have such classes. So why should a charter be any different? Though the budget split is different, the vast majority of special ed students do not have severe IEP’s.
MVWSD has a lot of funding beyond the LCFF amounts. The charter school only gets the base LCFF amount from public funding. So a charter will hardly take all the money.
The Bullis group has spent 5 years or so operating summer programs for disadvantaged kids from MVWSD and they have thereby established some interest in the new charter school. Let’s hope that MVWSD doesn’t go out of its way to dissuade low income or ELL kids from participating in the charter. This is what happened in LASD. The district actively sought to frustrate efforts to recruit such kids, and of course there are only 8% as many low income kids in LASD as there are in MVWSD.
This new charter truly is a worthwhile change. It is not looking to have that great of a budget to serve these kids. It is talking about having a longer school year, longer days, and after school programs included along with focused programs for disadvantaged kids. It might actually provide some useful data to MVWSD with ways it could reduce the achievement gap in its traditional schools.
Not true. My child has a severe IEP and is accommodated at his regular school. He could not be accommodated at BCS though. They are not equipped for special needs of this sort and I would bet you if he was in the lottery his number would “magically” drop to the bottom.
@J Would you really try to enroll your kid in a program that could not accommodate his education disabilities? Not all schools in MVWSD (regular schools) can accolade all particular types of special education students. I have not ever heard any other parent insist that a particular school or school site, must absolutely accommodate their particular student.
What I have seen is parents shop around and negotiate for schools that can met their child’s needs – and other kids who have similar types of learning or physical disabilities. Can a small school (startup charter, <200) accommodate special needs that a >2,000 district (K-3) might have on one campus?
J – your logic really makes no sense to me. You would not win in a high school debate contest!
MVWSD for several years operated a special-ed only school site at the Slater school, in the back, behind what is mostly leased to Google. No one without a severe IEP would go to this school. Now they pick a couple schools and serve the SDC students there, bit it’s not the same as saying they can go to the school to which they are assigned by residential address.
I’m not sure the reason for the personal attack, and thanks, I’m not interested in debate anyway.
No, I would never advocate for a particular school site. What I’m saying (if you can follow) is that BCS cannot accommodate most special needs kids HOWEVER most/many of the “regular” school campuses can. At least in Los Altos- I’ve been in Mountain View and know that things are pretty bad there.
I am a very good advocate for my child and have the best of the best, thank you for asking :). My comment wasn’t to open a can of worms. I do hope you get your child good help.
LASD only has SDC classes at 4 schools, out of 9 total. They may have more schools with SDC than does MVWSD, but the reality is that it is normal for SEVERE IEP’s to be educated only at certain locations. LASD also refers several severe cases out of district for education. For that matter they accept in a few severe cases to serve in some of their schools which do have SDC services. Special Day Classes are used by only under 20% of the total LASD special education program. I can’t believe someone says that charter schools don’t accommodate most special education IEP’s with services on site. This is simply not true.
I don’t know how Bullis is planning to pull it off. It has been able to achieve what it achieved due to generous donations from parents – both financial and time-related. If low income kids make up at least 50% of the school, it will be another Castro or Theuerkauf.
Now, are low income families looking to enroll in a school that is asking for a $5k suggested donation? Don’t think so. They are looking for free aftercare, enrichment, and transportation, not some fancy educational philosophy for $5k a year.
That said, it may well be that Bullis will be no more successful at recruiting the low income kids than Stevenson is, but will instead become a welcome outlet for families that are looking for alternatives of lukewarm public schools (where low income kids prevail) for their high achieving/unconventional kids. Which won’t be bad at all.
First thing is that the per student funding for Bullis Mountain View from the school taxes is about $2000 more per student than it is for Bullis Los Altos. Yes, this is correct.
Second thing is that in LASD some very expensive things are done for students that are NOT done in Mountain View Whisman. MVWSD has no STEM teacher at each school and doesn’t have its own expensive Music program. It uses CSMA. LASD does not. Bullis Los Altos has to replicate all these features to be competitive with LASD, and then it adds its own special enrichment activities too like Drama, Computer Programming, Speech and Debate, Mandarin and Spanish language instruction, and the list goes on.
Well, turns out you don’t need so much ENRICHMENT when your goal is to focus on socioeconomic disadvantage. It’s actually cheaper than all the enrichment spending.
So there you have it. There won’t be any problem with funding Bullis Mountain View out of the state specified funding levels. Odds are some enrichment features will also be afforded, but they aren’t the chief focus and they don’t need to be. LASD spends SO MUCH on the well-off students and it only has a very small portion of low income kids and only at 2 specific schools, less than 10% at each. It spends a tiny bit on special teaching for them, but mostly LASD spends BIG on enrichment options. LASD also collects like $300K per school to fund the PTA programs for the kids too, and Bullis Los Altos has to match that kind of spending too. You know, optional things that mostly make the parents feel good and like they are helping, like fancy school events and landscaping and furnishing features for the outdoor areas of the schools–nothing that really helps education per se.
I see that charter schools advocate Marshall Tuck is barely losing in the race for State Superintendent of PUBLIC EDUCATION (currently 50.8% to 409.2%. We all need an education about charter schools. Some could be good. Others could be awful.
I bet incumbent trustee Greg Coladonato is not upset that he was not re-elected. He did not seem to campaign and is leaving just before the ship sinks.
@SchoolChoice
While I am in favor of school choice in general, you have seriously misunderstood what the MVWSD has decided for the 2019-2020 school year, they did NOT eliminate school choice. More on that later.
“I am 100% in favor of charter schools.”
I am still undecided.
“The Mountain View School District is horrible in terms of giving parents choice.”
The MVWSD did NOT “give” these 2 choice schools to the families, BOTH choice schools were organized and won from the grass roots up.
Much like how the US Constitution an Bill of Rights did NOT “give” or “grant” “We the People” our rights. Our rights, like our “choice schools” were driven from the bottom up, we the parents gave our choice schools to the district.
And it’s more accurate to say that the MVWSD has often chosen NOT to provide meaningful support for our 2 choice schools and have seriously discussed closing one or the other choice school and the district has a long history of demonizing the choice schools as a way to divide the families of the MVWSD for political purposes.
“In fact, they just took away the ability to parents to send their kids to any other school other than their district one. No choice at all. ”
That’s just utterly FALSE!
The ONLY change was in the past extremely liberal policy to allow any family, on a whim, to request a transfer to one of the other NEIGHBORHOOD schools instead of their own default neighborhood school.
Our 2 choice schools were not effected.
The reason for the reset to get kids back into their local neighborhood schools was because the prior policy was so lax that about 1/3rd of all our kids were NOT attending their local neighborhood schools and as a result, we had Huff, Bubb & Landels wildly over crowded while Castro, Monta Loma and Theuerkauf were all below 300 kids and falling each year.
The change will reset the enrollment for the 7 neighborhood schools so that each one will have a healthy and manageable level of enrollment.
The prior policies meant that every neighborhood across the district have spread around their local kids to every other school in the district. This is really lousy for communities and schools.
I hope this correction helps.
ST Parent, didn’t you pull your kids out of Theuerkauf? Why is it OK for you to abandoned your neighborhood school, but not others?
No one should confuse the right of charter school founders to seek to establish a charter school wherever they like and the power of a City to hand over or not hand over money to a school district conditionally or not. Apples and oranges.
“There has been a “very active” effort by charter school advocates to endorse and support candidates throughout the state who support the charter school movement”
Look no further than our local Assembly Member Marc Berman who in 2016 benefited from $585,613 worth of “Independent” expenditures from EdVoice (a Charter School aligned PAC).
Their investment seems to have paid off. Berman recently opposed AB 1478 – a common sense legislation that would have required charter school boards to follow the same conflict of interest laws and disclosure regulations as our local school districts.
This is a Trojan Horse for the conservative billionaires trying to privatize our public commons. Do you really think Bullis cares about low income or ESL kids. They are using these kids to gain more market share.
Do we really want this in MV?
“Los Altos School District board members on Monday night accused Bullis Charter School of not being forthcoming with its enrollment growth plans. Trustees say that years of good-faith cooperation between the two agencies is threatening to unravel.
The latest rumor is that the charter school plans to grow to 1,800 students, according to trustee Sangeeth Peruri, which could siphon students from Los Altos district schools and force school closures. He questioned whether Bullis parents would want that kind of “mega school” in the middle of Los Altos.”
Read the rest of it here….scary and it coming to our neighborhood schools.
https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/09/11/tensions-grow-between-lasd-and-bullis-charter