BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Bullis Charter School has come out against a bond measure put on the ballot by the Los Altos School District to pay for a new Bullis campus. Bullis is happy with its current setup, split in portable classrooms at two middle schools for the last 10 years, Superintendent Maureen Israel said in an email.
A new campus planned at the San Antonio Shopping Center in Mountain View wouldn’t be large enough to fit Bullis and its 1,000-plus students, Israel said.
“LASD continues to exclude us from conversations about facilities, resulting in unworkable and counterproductive proposals,” Israel said after her board voted to oppose Measure EE on Sept. 9.
Bryan Johnson, board president for the Los Altos School District, said the bond measure was developed over many public meetings and many hours of discussions.
“No one was excluded from the process,” he said in an email yesterday. The majority of the $350 million bond will be spent at existing schools, Johnson said.
A new campus would reduce overcrowding at Egan Junior High School and Blach Intermediate School, where Bullis is now, Johnson said. The board discussed the results of a survey in July that showed the meaure was right on the edge of the 55% needed to pass.
“These numbers are pretty clear: There are going to be vulnerabilities in every approach you take,” consultant Jeremy Hauser told the board.
This is the second time the district has tried to pay for a new campus by Kohl’s, Johnson said in an interview in August.
The district passed a $150 million bond measure in November 2014 and purchased the Kohl’s site at the San Antonio Shopping Center in 2019.
The district, working with the city of Mountain View, planned to sell its leftover development rights at Kohl’s to developers, bringing in another $79 million, Johnson said. But developers have paused their office projects because of the pandemic downturn and rising interest rates. The district has only brought in about $10 million from developers so far, Johnson said.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to significantly invest in our schools,” Johnson said in the interview.
If the bond passes, then a new campus could open for the 2027-28 school year, Johnson said. By moving Bullis to a new campus, the Los Altos School District would free up space at the middle schools, allowing sixth graders to move from elementary schools where they currently attend, Johnson said.
The $350 million school bond would be the largest in the area.
For comparison, the Menlo Park City School District is asking voters to approve a $124 million bond, and the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District is asking voters to approve a $171 million bond.
Property owners would pay the money back — $30 for every $100,000 on the assessed value of the property. That’s $1,200 a year for a $4 million home.
According to state law, $30 for every $100,000 is the maximum school districts are allowed to ask for from voters.
The total debt is estimated to be $730 million, paid off by 2060, according to a tax rate statement.
$730 million of total debt service is an astronomical number for a small school district like LASD and it makes no sense to pursue the build of an ultra expensive 10th campus given enrollment declines over the past 10 years and projections of continued declines for the foreseeable future. LASD should scrap plans for the 10th campus, sell the land they bought with Measure N bond funds, and come back with a much smaller bond measure which focuses exclusively on upgrading existing schools.
They aren’t making any more land. There’s a long proven saying that school districts (particularly true of our local ones) should never sell land.
LASD’s own demographer projects that 6th grade and 7-8 will decline by an amount such that 6-8 will be about what 7+8 is today! In other words, just attrition will free up enough space at the Jr High Campuses. First you’d have to move Bullis out of the Jr Highs before any construction could begin at the Jr Highs. But the construction there is not even needed. No room currently by Bullis required either. 2022-3 had 6th grade at 358 and 7+8 at 875. In 2029-30, the district projects 6th grade drops to 296 and 7+8 drops to 614. So you have 263 fewer in 7+8 which can handle 296 sixth graders added to Junior Highs.
People don’t appreciate that the projections INCLUDE both births and people moving into apartments as they are built in the district.
Plus, parents have clearly said in the past that they PREFER 6th grade to be at the elementary schools. It’s hard to believe LASD is serious abot putting 6th grade at the Jr Highs when they imply it won’t happen until 2029-30. In 2029-2030, total elementary will drop from 2287 to 2052 (with 6th grade). Move 6th grade and you lose 296. 2052-296= 1756/ !756 at 7 schools mean the average elementary school would have only 251 as a TK-5 school.
Good evidence-based comments from David and Brett above.
Although $350M may be the largest bond measure in the area on the ballot this November, LASD is close to last in Santa Clara County in total indebtedness. But even this is a somewhat misleading comparison because it ignores the number of students served by the indebtedness. (I don’t recall seeing such a comparison.)
You have to consider how small LASD is. The enrollment is reduced by a county approved charter school for which LASD is not responsible and provides half as much operational funding ($0 out of its budget) as are used by LASD for traditional students. Also, LASD owns a lot of land and has a lot of existing facilities for such a small district. But also consider the fact that Bond Anticipation Notes are not counted toward total debt. There is another $70 Million in debt in BAN’s that needs to be paid off by non yet issued bonds from Measure N from 2014. Seems like the metric is being skewed in the campaign to get more funding approved.
There are some parents who say that their child would do better if 6th grade remained at the elementary schools. Others say that 6th grade is currently a wasted year because their child is sooooo ready for middle school.
I’m personally agnostic on the issue, in part because the improved educational outcomes have never been articulated. I’ve been told that moving to a middle school model (TK-5,6-8) would increase the electives we could offer our sixth graders. I agree, but by how much would this improve educational outcomes? The benefits are unclear, but the cost is ~$300M (~$150M land purchase + ~$150M to build facilities). I suspect that given $300M I could improve teaching and curriculum, and thus educational outcomes by significantly more than moving to a middle school model would. Perhaps a “mere” $100M would be enough.
I wonder if the main driver of putting Bullis Charter on the Kohl’s site is the desire to move to a middle school model, or if it’s the other way around: moving to a middle school model is being used as as a justification for putting Bullis Charter on the Kohl’s site.
Typical elementary schools don’t offer the extra classes found in LASD K-5. Art, Science Labs, Instrumental Music and even P.E. is more represented in LASD K-5 than at other schools. How does this happen? Simple, traveling teachers. PE, Music, Speech Therapy and Art all involve teachers that move between a few schools.
Now, why doesn’t LASD offer Spanish in 6th grade? Simple, because the school day is not long enough and the interest is not great enough. But LASD could clearly hire traveling teachers to add Spanish language classes to the 6th grade classes. There are only 12 or so 6th grade classeooms due to enrollment shrinkage. Across 7 elementary schools, there are never more than 2 classes per school. So if language learning is desired, LASD wold need to hire 2 new traveling Spanish teachers, with each visiting 3 different schools to do 2 classes at each. They might each do 2 days at the school which only has a single classroom of 6th graders. It could be decided to have Spanish only 4 days per week, as is common in Middle Schools. At the Middle School, you’d still need to hire 1 new teacher for each school. The current Spanish teachers are busy with grades 7 and 8.