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The Los Altos School District is soliciting public input on how to use a future campus in Mountain View and long-term plans for housing Bullis Charter School at a meeting Saturday, Oct. 5.
The district will be hosting the charrette in Egan Junior High School’s multipurpose room, located at 100 W. Portola Ave. in Los Altos, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The event is part of a larger effort by the district’s board of trustees to gauge community support on where to place the charter school, which has been a contentious topic for more than a decade.
In April, members of the Los Altos School District Board of Trustees and the Bullis Charter School Board of Directors jointly announced a 10-year deal that would relocate Egan Junior High School to a yet-to-be-built campus at the corner of California Street and Showers Drive in Mountain View. Under the terms of the agreement, Bullis Charter School would then be granted a majority of the Egan site and increase its enrollment to 1,111 students.
The deal was largely seen by trustees as a compromise: Bullis would voluntarily cap its enrollment growth for 10 years in exchange for a consolidated school site with permanent facilities. The charter school is currently housed in portable classrooms split between the Egan and Blach Intermediate School campuses in Los Altos.
But community members — particularly residents living near Egan — blasted the idea at the time, calling it a major concession to the charter school that amounts to closing a school. Los Altos school board members ultimately tabled the idea, citing a need for more community buy-in.
The charrettes are the start of the community feedback process, which is expected to last several months and includes two workshop sessions next month. A trove of information, mostly historical context and past ideas for housing Bullis Charter School, is available online.
District officials say the first charette, held at Blach on Sept. 25, lacked representation from Mountain View residents living within the district. Close to one-fourth of all students in the Los Altos district live in Mountain View, primarily in the San Antonio area of the city.
-Close Covington and move BCS to that campus
-Move 6th grade to Egan/Blach middle schools
-Spend the $150M Measure N bond funds to upgrade existing schools
Want to reduce traffic, cap BCS growth and give every neighborhood a school? Here is an interesting plan that just might bring peace to LASD:
1. Build a LASD run neighborhood school for the NEC at the new 10th site. – Students that now commute to Covington, Almond and possibly SR will now be able to walk or ride bikes to school.
2. Move the remaining Covington Students to other close-by neighborhood schools — this can be phased in over time.- Springer, Almond, Loyola and GB are all declining in enrollment — this will return students to their natural neighborhood school.
3. Build al new middle school at the current Covington site. Include a new gym, and theater to serve the entire community.
4. Move Egan to the new Egan site at Covington. — This will place between 500 -600 students – about the same as the current total.
5. Move all of BCS to Egan. — With a cap on BCS this will reduce the total number students at that site.
Too many kids in the area for a new elementary school. Last year over 600 but LASD schools now average 400 in elementary. Not only is 600 too big but in 5 years when a building could open there will be many more 800 or 900. And without those kids the LASD other schools would average 350 even if Covington closes. Oops.
Having attended a charrette, I’m thinking that there will be no amicable solution. Many anti-BCS solutions were brought up…probably encouraged privately by the trustees at all the community sessions beforehand.
What will probably happen at the workshops is that we’ll vote on options, and then the anti-BCS option will win because LASD makes up 80% of the district. Then, they’ll say, “see, this is what the community wants.” You better “collaborate” this time, BCS.
Of course, BCS will say “no, we are not that dumb. This is totally rigged.” Then, they’ll grow.
What a waste of time. I guess BCS needs to grow over 50% before they’ll get a campus of their own.
I’m no insider, but I think if the 10th site is brought up as an option again for BCS, we are headed for war.
What a mess the LASD trustees have created. Huge amount of time wasted on the Egan debacle and now the charrettes that will probably just lead to more animosity.
There are 7 kinder classes at BCS this year. Last year, at LASD, there were 21 K and TK classes. There are likely less this year. So, BCS is at least 25% of LASD at the kinder level. 25% of the district and 0 campus of its own. Ridiculous.
It’s likely that LASD enrollment is down over 400 students this year. It could even
be down by 500 students. Wow, 500 students. That would be an entire school. There’s a chance LASD will just back out of buying the land. It really makes no sense for BCS, despite the line that former school board member Sang is pushing. The growth in the area immediately around the proposed purchase is impressive. It’s 800 students as of last year, and it could be even more this year. Have you noticed all the apartments up in the air across San Antonio Road from the location? By the time the school could be built and those are occupied, there could easily be another 200-300 students living right there. The problem is, LASD can’t just sweep them under some sort of magic carpet. They’re real people! Their parents haven’t even moved in yet. Who represented them at the Charettes?
Included in the 200-300 student growth estimate are the kids living in the new apartments on Ortega Avenue behind target, and the ones who will live in the big Greystar project. There are also multiple projects across San Antonio Road, not just the ones going up right now. They’ll start to add kids sooner than 5 years from now, of course.
The problem with LASD is that they wanted to have this new school open 3-4 years ago before the kids arrived in the neighborhood. Their timetable was off.
Evidently, the persons in charge of the LASD see the deal made with the City of Mountain View (current City Council) to NOT use the new school site in MV for a charter school as NEGOTIABLE. Bullis Charter may yet be shipped to MV or Ukraine or China.
The energy going into political manipulation has been impressive.
We have scary messages saying that Covington is targeted for closure – a lie, there are many ideas, most don’t involve Covington and a few avoid closing any school at all. There’s even a flyer deceptively promoting a “Community Discussion” to avert Covington’s closure… which happens to be at the same place and time as the LASD charette that isn’t about Covington.
A certain former LASD Trustee and compatriots have been promoting an idea to split BCS in a way they must already know is non-viable. It wouldn’t support BCS’s K-8 program and it would violate Mountain View’s conditions for the 10th site, among other reasons.
If this effort successfully distracts the community away from real solutions, the LASD Board will end up with greater discretion to stick with the original plan (Egan to 10th site).
Now that I have seen the current MOU (contract) between the LASD and City of Mountain City, I see that it is possible for the school district to assign BCS to the new MV site if the “neighborhood” children were given enrollment priority. While BCS may not agree to such priority, the parties to the contract can always change the contract. So if LASD convinces current or future MV City Councilmembers to retreat to the original position of the City in providing money for the site with no restrictions on use, then the LASD would be back in control. Keep in mind that far more school space will be sought as mid-rise and high-rise housing is added to Mountain View and to downtown Los Altos. Maybe, schooling should become more de-centralized.