To the BCS community -

I respect the school choices that you have made in opening BCS and in attending BCS. I applaud your accomplishment and I appreciate having options within Los Altos. If your community campaigns for a bond measure to build a campus tailored to your K-8 needs, and if such a campus ends facilities litigation, I will support it and ask my neighbors to do the same.

I've made the choice to send my children to a fully-occupied, high-performing neighborhood school. Will you respect that?

I too would support a Bond for a special Charter campus although I would also suggest we get private donations into the mix as well. I would love to contribute significantly to such a thing.

In exchange for this, BCS must agree:

1. To move their Charter to the District from the County.

2. To change the board of BCS to include openly elected LASD parents along with an LASD Board member in addition privately appointed board members chosen by the current BCS ownership.

3. To not grow outside of the capacity of the new campus.

4. To change its lottery preference to include all of LASD boundaries.

I think a Bond would be a hard sell for our area right now but a "matching" of funds from private donors could make this very tempting.

I think that BCS should welcome the idea of being able to formally pitch themselves and get approval from the majority (2/3 majority I suspect) of Los Altos and Hills citizens.

I too would encourage my neighbors and friends to support a bond measure, based on the past 10 years worth of enrollment growth and future enrollment growth based on upcoming housing unit development.
A facilities bond measure only requires a 50% majority (the actual meat of the infamous Prop 39) to pass and I think if the LASD trustees also included some money for phase 2 construction roll-out at all of the campuses in addition to acquisition/construction of a new campus for BCS, it would encourage voters to pass such a bond.
-Jennifer Carlstrom

I am not sure that a bond measure makes sense when there is ample room for all students on existing LASD campuses. Have a look at the recently refurbished Covington and Gardner-Bullis sites. If required, the modest growth projected to come from new housing units could be easily accommodated with portables. Taxpayers will not be warm to the idea of a bond measure simply because BCS and the District cannot sort out their differences, especially on the heels of the recent parcel tax increase.

BCS Parent(s),

No one actually wants a bond measure. But Los Altos loves education and being united as a community.

Stop listening to your leaders and lawyers, and listen to Jennifer, Jolie and your neighbors instead. It's not "us" vs. "them." It's just "us."

If you focus on finding your own school space, and not taking away the neighborhood choice valued by others, Los Altos will be there to support you. Let it.

I’d love to have adequate space without closing an existing school, but unless the growth projections really support the need, it’s a big misallocation of resources to raise a bond for school space that we already have. Can’t say that I fully understand the mechanics of a construction bond, but I suspect that there is no free lunch here, and I’d rather that LASD only do this if it is required for other reasons. Seems like state funding is in flux, and CalSTRS is now talking about increasing contributions. As someone who wants all schools in our town to be strong, I don’t want us taking unnecessary financial risks. Anyway, I’ll read up on California school bonds and projected enrollment growth before I comment further.

Here is the 2011-2012 budget document from LASD.

http://www.losaltos.k12.ca.us/files/user/1/file/2011_12_budget.pdf

Go to page 110 and you'll see that the LASD K-6 student population is forecast to DECLINE by 423 students by 2018. And they want to build more campuses?! Are they out of their minds?

This district operated with six K-6 schools prior to BCS starting up! Now with BCS we have 8, without any appreciable student growth to support it!!

Okay, had a close look at my tax bill and found the .06% I am currently paying for “Elementary or Unified School bonds”. Sounds small, but it does take a bite out of the wallet. Also looked at LASD financials, and they show enrollment exceeding classroom capacity 84 students when summed across the entire district. However, this does not include the numerous portables, and many of the campuses still have excess capacity. I’ll have to admit that I was unlikely to convince myself that adding a site makes sense. It only takes a quick look at our beautiful, large, modern campuses to realize that this is not a question of needing a new site. Even if our generous taxpayers were willing to foot the bill, it doesn’t sit right with me (and I have a very vested interest).

If a separate site isn't doable, are there ways to mitigate the impact of BCS moving to another campus? On a big campus like Covington could BCS and the existing school (perhaps downsized over time), share the campus? Is there a way to keep the older students at the existing school together so they do not have to switch schools twice in close succession (once as part of redrawn boundaries and then once again as they move on to middle school)? Could BCS charter be changed to grant a preference to homes in the immediate vicinity? Just throwing ideas out there – I am sure they all have problems.

Did BCS get their equal portion of Measure E money?

So bottom line, our proposal to solve this situation without closing a school is rejected.

Yes, CHOICE COSTS MONEY and requires an "extra" campus, but they don't care--in the worst budget environment our schools have ever seen, the BCS people feel entitled to having a "interesting and different" experiment in education here. They'll even turn down free money from philanthropists.

For BCS supporters, the most important thing is to CLOSE OUR LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS and scatter our kids all over town. It's not about education or kids or community or anything like that. It's about revenge and a deep hatred of public schools by BCS supporters.

So we're back to plan A: parents in Los Altos and Hills need to do the marketing necessary to put BCS out of business. If prospective parents knew the background behind this school and knew it was hated in our community, they would be appalled and would never send their children there.

Please help us spread the word. See:

http://bullisCharterScam.org/

And for prospective parents, please have them view what after only two weeks has become the #1 video for Bullis Charter School:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO3C17Uv1fc

Thank you.

I missed you on Monday, Joan. Where were you?? People don't sue others for free speech, so you must just be embarrassed.

And the arrogance to think we would even bother sending one of the top litigators in the world after you? As crazy as your posts!

No cajones!

Bill: I don't know about China, but i do know something about Costa Rica. There were at least two kids in my daughters' class who could not afford the trip, and perhaps more. Ms. Hersey found money for each of them to go on the trip, and did not make this public or embarrass the kids and their families. It was very clear that anyone who could not afford the trip would still be able to attend. I though the way she did this was extremely classy and inclusive.

Bill, my apologies and a big thanks for the correct spelling. My oldest is only in 4th grade so I don't know how those trips work just yet. Happy to look into it. I believe someone else responded that our community finds a way to cover the cost for any student who wants to go, but might struggle to afford it. Since both trips are integrated into the curriculum and have a service component, I cannot imagine leaving anyone at home if the family wanted them to participate.

BCS Parent -

Thank you for the thoughtful responses. If you're willing, I'd like to continue our dialog. I’ll explain why I support a bond measure, and I’d like to hear your concerns and pushback. But please remember that my ultimate goal here is not to ostracize BCS, but to embrace it as part of the Los Altos educational community.

I’ll start with why BCS’s request to take over a campus won’t work.

In the average, say, second grade class in a LASD school, there are 25 potential students. Let’s say that 20 attend the neighborhood school and 5 attend BCS.

Under the BCS proposal, the 20 kids who *chose* the neighborhood school get evicted. The five who *chose* to be elsewhere get installed. In what way does that honor the “school choice” of anybody?

Keep in mind, too, that for many Los Altans, choosing a school involved not just teaching styles, but also years of planning about neighborhoods, houses, bike paths and so on. (Not as a criticism, but a contrast: choosing BCS meant – for every single K-6 kid currently there – choosing the current location.)

From a community standpoint – and I’m talking about the community, not the law – evict-a-campus is never going to work. Los Altos cares far too much about its children and its neighborhoods for that.

If you care about Los Altos community – not the LASD board or some other villain, but your friends and your children’s friends and your neighbors – we have to find another way.

Ron,CC,Joanna, thank you for the response. Is it fair to assume the Egan trip had an explicit cost and payment by each parent? Or was the trip funded by the PTA?
Either way, for BCS, I am wondering if the same were true, the foundation subsidized the trip for the "two who couldn't afford it". (side note, just the fact that Joanna knows of at least two who needed aid denotes the lack of secrecy). At what $$ point do those subsidized trips not happen? My concern lies with the disadvantaged, a major factor and motivator behind charter law. Use the trip as an Example......subsidizing can only go so far, and if more SED kids were served at BCS, there would be a breaking point with regard to the tuition. Indeed in 2008/09 the school lost $$ according to IRS form 990. Regardless of the wealth of families in LASD, at what incentive does a school like BCS have to serve the disadvantaged. One small example would be a English language learner who moves to LASD in Dec, BCS would never have to educate that child and is not incentivized to do so. What will BCS do to truly serve all kids?

Bill, I am only speaking for myself, but the only reason the child moving to LASD in December can't get a seat is because there is no seat. If we had the facilities, space and our fair share of tax dollars, we could educate every student in the district with no ask...just as LASD does now. But, because we have been forced to live within the confines of a limited number of trailers, we must have a lottery. Because of the funding shortfall, much like LAEF, we must beg our community to help make up the difference. It is not tuition, it is an investment in our kids, our program and our community. Using that metaphor, I am confident that we would not plan such a trip that would place undue burdens on our parents. If we had some that felt their kid was at risk of not being able to participate, we, as a community, step up and write the check. Again, I speak for myself...

Oh no! Randy Kenyon has highlighted "student safety concerns" for physically separating Elementary and Middle School children. For 8 YEARS innocent elementary school children have been exposed to middle school students (and vice versa) by locating BCS on the Egan site. Surely this situation must be swiftly rectified. I'm sure Randy's on top of it.

I can't stand BCS, but I'm secretly glad they exist. Next to private school students, they are by far the most profitable students for our district. We get to pocket the tax dollars paid by the chumps who are the parents of these 500 students, provide an armpit of a campus and not spend any of our bandwidth worrying about educating these 500 students that would otherwise crowd our public schools. Afterall, it was their CHOICE to go to BCS.

What I don't understand is why BCS applications keep going up every year? And why do these LASD parents keep applying when their chances of getting in are really LOW? They can only get in if an existing kid leaves BCS. BCS claims it has tried to accommodate this demand by adding classes and that is why the school has been growing, but I don't buy it. Still, it is more money for LASD in the end....

More annoying to me is the fact that BCS teachers are not unionized. If a teacher is not excellent, he/she gets the boot from BCS. That puts some strain on LASD teachers so I can see why the unions are threatened by the lack of tenure system at BCS. It's un-American. It's much better for this district to have no competition.

Anyway, if BCS did not exist, I would have nothing better to do since I don't have kids, my wife cares more about stray animals than me and I have not had a decent job in years. This BCS bashing is the best way I've been able to make new friends and finally have people be willing to talk to me!

Ron (and others frankly),
I can appreciate your comments about the problems here, but I am really tired of your personal attacks on those who post. If you feel its needed, blast the content of the post but don't blast the person making the comment. My mother once told me - when people disagree, winners explain the message, losers attack the messanger.

Secondly, why do you have one child at BCS and the other at Egan? I would think that if BCS was as outstanding as you claim, you would have both children at BCS. Is it a cost thing? Is it a program thing? What is it? It doesn't make sense - bash LASD but have a child enrolled in LASD when another "choice" is available. Please explain?

Question to all the BCS supports - what if LASD somehow expanded the Egan "Camp" site to around 8+ acres for k-6 and then had the 7-8 grade students at Blach in a site suitable for the enrollment numbers of your students (say 2 acres with appropriate class space). Would that be suitable?
I believe PAUSD has revolving teachers that integrate content to students at various physical sites. Could BCS do something like this?

LASD Parents - pay close attention to this related news. The Santa Clara County Office of Education is set to vote on redrawing electoral districts. 11 different scenarios have been submitted for vote (Feb 15 or Feb 29), some of which would have a direct, negative impact on the districts of Anna Song and Grace Mah. Song and Mah were the two board members who took the time to understand the details of the recent BCS Charter renewal and voted against renewing it, unless BCS agreed to make fundamental changes and actually move into compliance with the law by meeting ALL of the requirements of a charter school, which includes serving underpriveleged children.

And get this, the individual who drafted the 11 scenarios was Josh Newman, who founded EdTech, the company that did work for BCS when it obtained its original charter. And the SCCOE claims there is no "bias" present.

Others disagree:

"Song, who voted against Bullis' renewal, noted that one of the consultants' scenarios carves up her Santa Clara district, and also chops up the district of Grace Mah, another dissenter in the latest Bullis renewal.

"It could be a coincidence, but I'm human," Song said. "This is becoming a little more suspicious." "

http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_19863436
http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_19880943?source=rss

Nobody discriminated. Those two board members just want charter schools to meet ALL of the requirements of the charter. And now a blatant BCS supporter has put forth redistricting scenarios that could get the two SCCOE Board Members who voted against renewing BCS' charter (absent making fundamental changes to make BCS compliant with charter school objectives) voted out of office.

This goes back to October when one SCCOE Board member claimed the renewal of the charter was a very democratic process. Point is that everyone should contact the SCCOE to make sure the vote on redistricting is fair and democratic, not influenced (either way) by people with an agenda. In October, LASD parents missed their opportunity to be heard and a Board member cited a Patch poll (presumably only answered by BCS parents) that came out strongly in favor of renewing BCS' charter with no changes needed. It wasn't scientific and it wasn't democratic. That mistake won't happen again.

http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/10_11_11_santa_clara_county_board_education_bullis_charter_los_altos/

"In a Los Altos Patch online poll, 64% of 789 votes wanted the charter renewed. I called the question at that time and the motion on the floor passed by a 5-2 vote, with members Song and Mah voting against reauthorization without restriction. It was a messy process. However, it was democratic."

How have either Anna Song or Grace Mah discriminated against BCS, Alan?

Guys, remember there's "democracy" for us normal folks, and then there's "democracy" for the BCS regime:

http://bullischarterscam.org/bullis_charter_history.php#bcs_buys_pols

(With apologies to the brave Anna Song who obviously didn't "play ball" like the BCS people expected: look for strong donations from BCS supporters in the next election sent to whomever runs against her).

Now all is not lost. First of all, donations only go so far (see: Anna Song). Second, we're not talking buying a POTUS here: these folks are lucky if they get $10-20k in contributions, from the looks of things. We have numeric superiority and if individual donations get too massive, it gets self-defeating (viz. "looks bad").

So yes, I know, none of us honest folk are generally in the business of paying off pols to influence things, but this is the way the world works these days, unfortunately.

Anna Song will get a check from me this year...

have you stopped to ask yourself why Anna Song's response to Mrs. Buffy Poon included Cindy Chavez aka...the Queen of the Unions, who ran and lost to the courageous Chuck Reed in San Jose? Yup, that Chuck Reed, the one trying to eliminate the pensions that are currently strangling that city's budgets.

Anna Song is free to challenge the Charter school to do better. I applaud it. However, to act as if her selfless, epiphany was without motive, is preposterous. You can bet she won't be getting another check from me as she put herself firmly in bed with the Union which imho, is more than half the problem with California's education crisis right now. And with $20Million on LASD books, you ought to be paying attention.

Just keep in mind that the proposed jerrymandering could put Anna Song vs. Grace Mah in the next election. Or move one/both of them into new districts with different constituents. A redistricting scenario where Anna and Grace have to go head-to-head would eliminate one of the only two voices that actually spoke out on this topic.

The debate over the redistricting needs be followed closely and a fair decision made.

Well it does appear as though the BCS people are trying to pull a fast one here by installing their guy in the gerrymandering maneuver. They win that round I guess.

Fortunately we caught them before they could finish the job. Yes, let's indeed follow this issue closely and let the Board know that they will NOT be able to pull anything here.

***
Oh by the way, when you remember a time when you were just some engineer or biotech professional or CEO or entrepreneur or venture capitalist or stay-at-home mom/dad etc. etc. who never got involved in local politics, greasing politicians, sleazy political maneuvers, local elections, etc. etc... try to remember what got you into all of this: say a silent "thank you" (or some other appropriate expletive) to the founders of BCS.

Now all of us have to be activists in our spare time lest our children's school get hauled away by a bunch of lawyers.
***

So yeah, as I was saying, spread the word about this battle. You can BET that "Wanny" has already directed her troops (sorry, parents) to vote in lock-step for the BCS slate in the next election...

More information here, including names of the members of the County Committee on School District Organization.

http://www.sccoe.org/supandboard/countycommittee/
http://www.sccoe.org/supandboard/countycommittee/agmin/11/12_14_11Minutes.pdf

Just be warned that even though the Committe and the SCCOE are aware of the challenges with BCS / LASD, and even though their recent vote to extend the charter as is contributed to the challenges, don't expect them all to care. Some just want the issue to go away. See what happened to another LASD parent that tried to have an open dialogue on the issues with one SCCOE board member.

http://losaltos.patch.com/articles/county-school-board-member-not-into-refereeing-the-1-ers

Once again BCS's response is to go to court.

On Tuesday, February 1, 2012, Bullis Charter School filed papers in the Superior Court seeking to expedite a hearing related to the 2009 lawsuit and to begin the process of litigating the 2012-2013 Preliminary Facilities Offer. The Court set a case management hearing for February 16, 2012 to determine what next steps should be taken, but denied BCS's motion related to initiating activities related to the district's 2012-2013 Preliminary Offer.

Ron,

Still wondering why you have a kid in LASD when "it is so poorly run"?

BCS Parent -

I'd like to continue what I hope will be a dialog.

Above, you say, "We absolutely cannot do this on our own. We need the community and LASD in particular (who has a legal obligation) to partner with us to solve this."

I disagree, in part. BCS has a superb track record and enviable support. It spends thousands of dollars more per student than other LASD schools, largely on the back of fundraising. Even if the state repealed the charter laws or Prop 39, BCS would continue as a private school or in some other form, and the BCS community would find a campus entirely on its own. This is not to suggest a path or obligation, but instead just to point to (and praise) BCS's strength.

What I really want to address is this: "We need the community." Two questions:

- What is BCS doing to develop community support?

- Why won't BCS propose a plan - any plan - that does not involve evicting other kids?

I will support a bond measure just for BCS. I will support any reasonable shared space arrangement. I just need BCS to show that its "school choice" proponents respect my choice - my neighborhood school - as much as their own.

Ron,

Really, a lack of lab space....What's the real reason. Stop being so cryptic. Quit blaming. Is it because BCS 7-8th grade don't really offer anything different? No choice perhaps? Without getting personal, does your child need services that BCS doesn't provide. It seems that a few BCS parents have both children at BCS and LASD (an Oak mother spoke about having 2 kids at BCS and 1 at Oak). All of us non BCSers would like to understand how you can continually bash LASD schools yet maintain at least one of your children in LASD. What is BCS lacking that LASD provides? Please explain. Why doesn't BCS provide these services that LASD provides? Where is the "choice" that you claim is so outstanding?

Ron, You are correct. The BCS leopard continues to show its lawsuit spots.

Ron,

I'm sorry, but I thought you had written in an earlier thread that you had a child at Egan. Was I incorrect?

LA Parent
I’ll try to answer some of your specific questions in a bit, but let me start here.

I don’t think anyone is disputing the value and appeal of neighborhood schools. That value needs to be weighed against the value of having an independent charter providing alternate choices in our district. A lot of families clearly believe BCS provides a superior education. Some believe, as I do, that having an independent charter thriving in the district is good for the long term health of the district. Is some disruption of neighborhood schools worth it in order for BCS children (present and future) to be educated in equivalent facilities and to provide healthy competition to LASD? Even if you don’t see value in that end state, do you feel that there is moral obligation to share public resources equally among district children?

So to review our thread here, BCS people advocate CLOSING NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC SCHOOLS even in the face of being offered their own dedicated brand-new campus FOR FREE. Unless it throws kids out of their current schools, giving them the much-needed REVENGE for what happened to them years ago, they are not interested.

Also, I detect, with the absolutely hateful and personal posting above attacking a local blogger, BCS people interested in taking the fight to the next level of extreme nastiness. I can't wait to see how that plays out.

LA Parent-

Question: What is BCS doing to develop community support?

Answer: BCS is providing an excellent, differentiated education and the community has already shown tremendous support in the form of applications, enrollments, and generous donations. I know my original post and your question where coming from a different angle, and I don’t want to come off as glib or arrogant, but from some perspectives the community support is nothing short of phenomenal, and BCS’ primary mechanism for building that support needs to be continued excellence in education.

I’ll try to give a more straightforward answer.

I have only been at BCS a short while, and can’t really speak to past efforts at community building. I believe that some attempts were made early on to make a relatively “community friendly” move into the GB campus when it would not have involved dislocating existing students. I do have to admit to seeing a certain amount of siege mentality in the BCS community that has probably not helped our image. That mentality probably served a purpose when BCS was a small upstart school, and it was a natural reaction to clear hostility from the LASD Board. However, I’ll agree that the time has come for BCS to better communicate how we fit into the greater district going forward.

Ron,
I copied an earlier post from you here:
"Ron Haley

6:10 pm on Thursday, February 2, 2012

Bill,
I have children at Egan and the charter. In both cases, it's parents pay. Didn't look like there was any discount. If LASD handed over the money it's withholding from each BCS child, then each child could make the trip twice free of charge, every year!"

It sure looks like you have children at Egan or this another "error." Again why do you have children in LASD when BCS is so good? Similar question I would pose to the Oak mother (who spoke at the board meeting on Monday) who has 2 children at BCS and 1 at Oak. Why would she keep one at Oak while the others are at BCS? What is missing from BCS that LASD provides? And don't say facilities because if the BCS facilities are currently good enough to educate one of your children, they should be good enough to educate the other(s). So it must be that LASD offers some program that BCS doesn't. What program is that(s)? Why doesn't BCS provide those as part of their "choice" offerings?

LA Parent-

Regarding my thoughts on bond and fund raising questions.

First, I think there has to be some realization that proposals that introduce delays or have doubtful outcomes are going to be a tough sell for BCS people. Many feel that this has already gone on way too long. For my part, I’ve already asked that people take a long view on this. I’m willing to do the same and say, sure, if I had to wait a couple of years and that could save a lot of short-term pain, let’s do it. But I won’t do it for anything so doubtful as a bond measure or a very large fund raising effort. I don’t want to see the LASD board use the time to find new ways to undermine BCS. If there were some legal mechanism that guaranteed the end-state would have BCS with an equitable share of facilities, I would trade a couple of years under current conditions to make things easier for everyone.

I have more a more fundamental objection to both the bond and fundraising approach in that I don’t think it is a great use of resources when we already have sites and space that are more than capable of supporting our students. I certainly wouldn’t say no if someone wanted to make this problem go away with their own generosity, but I won’t go out and ask for it. More on that later. Happy to continue dialogue on this thread or most recent Patch article.

BCS parent,

I know you don't speak for the BCS community, but can you see any scenario where BCS would take two campuses - one for k-6 and another for 7-8th grades?

Looking at the 7th and 8th grade numbers, I don’t think having them on their own campus is going to work. Beyond the problem of BCS needing to share specialist teachers across elementary and middle school, they will really lose their sense of community/connectedness if they become just a couple of classrooms on another campus. Just think about being on a campus of hundreds, where you are only having interaction with 60 other kids. That’s not good. The small 7th and 8th cohort works at BCS in part because they are involved with activities that involve the whole school.

Plus, this doesn’t solve the problem of the K-6 BCS students being too large of a group to place at any one campus without displacing existing students. In my opinion, the preceding sentence is really the fundamental problem, which means that the right question is this: under what scenarios would BCS allow their K-6 students to be split between two campuses? So I’ll just say out loud what I have been thinking for a couple of days: what if BCS split their K-6 students between two campuses and figured out a way to absorb the existing student populations into the charter school? I can hear the groans from here, and I am sure it is unworkable legally and politically, but it might be an interesting discussion….

BCS parent,

BCS parent - please look beyond what you believe to hold true as I am trying to do the same. Many schools (both public and private) share specialists among different groups of kids and different disciplines at different campuses. I believe this is happening in the Palo Alto school district as we speak.

Is it possible that having a small group of (60+-) junior high students attending school together could create a better bond amongst these children because the group is small and intimate? Kids create more of a sense of community because they can truly get to know each other both in and out of the classroom? Could creating a strong bond with kids in the junior high (or middle school) years make the transition to one of our local high school easier?

Lastly, how many 7th or 8th graders do you know, want to hang with 3rd, 4th or 5th graders? They want to hang with kids their own age so in essence regardless of where you put them, they will isolate themselves to hanging with other 7th and 8th graders. Another option might be to create two campuses, one for k-5, the other for 6-8th grades.


Regarding your last point, there is actually a lot of interaction between the grades at Bullis. Students are organized into “Houses” and have competitions and activities throughout the year where houses that include students from K thru 8 working together. It provides great opportunities for growth and leadership. I have personally seen 7th and 8th graders absolutely thrilled to be able to help out younger kids with all sorts of tasks. That’s just one of many things that we lose if the grades are separated.

I will think through your other comments, but I am curious to hear your reaction to general idea, however implausible, of having BCS run two campuses. If the primary concerns are not breaking apart existing student groups (and BCS agreed to be the school to take that hit), and preserving the neighborhood character of the school (which is a little harder to figure out how to maintain in the long term, except for at GB with the preference in effect), then I want to know what is so unreasonable about the idea. Leave aside the political and legal hurdles for the time being – this is just open ended brainstorming for now.

For the record, I am not even sure that I like this idea. I don’t know if BCS could do it without fundamentally changing the character of the school. As part of some forced change under threat of a school closure it’s a recipe for disaster. But it still helps me understand your position if you can explain your issues with this hypothetical solution.

How would parents react if there wasn’t all this history and BCS came to them and said: “Hey we’ve got 500 K-6 kids and what we think is a really great educational program, but not enough space to teach them. How about we put 250 at each of your campuses and we run this program?”

The $5000 suggested donation is probably a real problem , but as long as we are doing hypotheticals, let’s pretend that an agreement was reached that allowed for more equal sharing of revenues and that satisfied issues around BCS board transparency and accountability.

BCS Parent,

The idea of blending the BCS school with a LASD school sounds like a plausible idea except that it would never happen. BCS would reject it because it changes the small close knit character of BCS and takes away their freedom to do whatever they thought was good for educating their kids. I personally think that once BCS gets to any size much larger than it currently is, it will have to deal with the issues that the LASD has always had to deal with - program choices, students with differing education requirements and abilities, larger teacher base puts more pressure on management to compensate fairly (the dreaded "union" that BCSers clearly don't want) and facility issues.
LASD wouldn't want it because of fairness, perceived exclusivity, lack of public management over public monies and facilities (ie. BCS board is not publicly elected or accountable to the district as a whole).
The other non BCS combined schools (in theory) wouldn't receive the additional monies spent (5K, 2.5k or whatever that "donation" would be), nor would they think it fair that those who were in the new BCS combined schools would be required to increased their "donation" to (5k, 2.5k or whatever). I think you have two very different ideologies in running and managing public education. Neither would get a gold star for working well together!

I don’t agree that running two campuses means that you have to give up the close knit character of those schools. You would still have communities centered on those individual campuses – they would just have what I believe are the significant advantages of the BCS model and program. I understand that not everyone buys into those advantages, and that you are questioning, in particular, whether they can continue to be advantages as BCS expands. That’s a good debate, and at least moves us beyond this false choice of “BCS with Equivalent Facilities” versus “Community School”.

And to give a preliminary response to a couple of the reasons you give for why BCS can't run two campuses:

Program choices: I am not sure I understand the issue here. BCS already offers a lot of variations in co- and extra-curricular classes. Those could differ somewhat between campuses without too much trouble, provided BCS was still delivering on its core mission. For example, maybe Mandarin is not the right language at the second campus – I don’t know. If anything the charter can generally bring program choice to its students with a lot less hassle then is possible at a district run school.

Students with Differing education Requirements and Abilities: I really think that BCS is far less homogenous then some would like to paint us. We do a lot of individualized teaching and are working with kids with all varieties of issues. There may be a slight skew due to the BP preference and the fact that the Mandarin program does not attract ELL students. This issue gets play for two reasons: 1) “Cherry-picking” or “creaming” has got a lot of national attention as a legitimate issue in others districts (that I would argue have totally different dynamics than LASD), 2) Language in Prop 39 made it a potential avenue of attack during the charter renewal process.

BCS parent,

Could you expand or clarify your comment about having two campuses (presumably k-8) that wouldn't detract from the "communityness" of each individual campus, yet in a prior post you mentioned that BCS couldn't have two campuses k-6 and 7-8 because you would lose that "communityness." In combining any two new groups of kids, your biggest issue will be getting the kids from each "prior" school to blend with others from the "new" combined school. Am I missing something here?

I just think it is hard to build a healthy community around such a small group of kids (50 or 60 middle school students) unless they have a meaningful connection to the bigger organization, which they will lose if they are operating out of some island at Blach. Separate campus might make more sense if BCS middle school was larger, but it isn’t. And splitting 7-8 out still doesn’t solve the problem of K-6 being too big to keep at Egan.

I think the K-8 issue alone shows why a completely new (new-to-us at least) dedicated campus outside of the current set of LASD campuses is the only option. I also think that the law gets in our way in that a dedicated K-8 campus for BCS would actually NOT be "reasonably equivalent" in that no students in LASD nor most districts in California have a campus configuration this way.

BCS has an interesting way of doing its programs. I certainly see what you're trying to do. However, these programs are DIFFERENT than our District schools, and in this case, expensively different. I think we've beaten the issue to death here: in life you get a default option for free or you get an interesting and different "choice" if you pay for it.

I have no problem with expensive things that work well. I seriously doubt most BCS leaders, if they weren't in a "war", would either. It's just disingenuous to hear "oh we can't afford that" from them or ANY parent at BCS currently coughing up $5000/year per child.

In an odd coincidence, I understand that the District has proposed, in last night's board meeting, exactly that: to float a bond to buy BCS it's own campus.

So come on folks: let's get it on the ballot by November! Let's start dialing-for-dollars to get private money to pay for those lovely etched granite plaques. We need to raise about 1/10000th of Facebook's IPO valuation! (Or 1/300th of the Mo... oh nevermind).

This is BY FAR the easiest way out of this mess I've heard...

Larger teacher-base/union:

This is another one where I think the dynamic in Los Altos is radically different. Teachers want to be here. Whether you are talking BCS or LASD we have great kids, parents, and community support, and this makes a world of difference for our teachers. The fact that the current system doesn’t allow us to use this advantage to make sure that every single teacher is absolutely top-notch is big loss for our community.

If we were talking for real about expanding BCS in this way, I think a facts-based discussion about teacher recruitment, training, evaluations, and compensation, including real financial details, would be an absolute requirement. There isn’t a single area that’s more important to the success of the school than attracting and keeping the best teachers, and if there is something unsustainable about the current model, I’d like to know it.

I don’t know how much of this information is already publically available. I do know that BCS talks a lot about sharing their model with other schools, and there can’t be any meaningful sharing happening without covering these issues. I suspect (hope?) that there is a good deal more transparency here than some of you believe.

Bottom-line: BCS has already filled one campus with unbelievably talented teachers. Look at how that was done and tell me why it couldn’t be used to fill two campuses.

BCS Parent -

Thanks for continuing the dialog.

I owe you a response to your question about whether there is a moral duty to provide better facilites to BCS, so I'll start there. My answer is no, and I find the question bizarre. Was California charter law "immoral" before Prop 39? Are the charter laws of other, mostly non-Prop 39 states "immoral"? Of course not. I support charters generally, and would support BCS, for practical and policy reasons. Charter laws create choices - with the consequences of those choices known to those who make them. But with choices comes responsibility for those choices, and every BCS family knew what it was getting.

On another topic, I appreciate your out-of-the-box thinking on mutli-campus scenarios. But please bear in mind that the idea of BCS taking over more than one campus is a non-starter. No matter what its leaders may say (and it does not take long to realize that they say many, many misleading things), BCS is not that popular with in-district families, and almost half of its applications - at least last year - came from elsewhere.

Contemplate this: what does it say about the leadership of a high-performing elementary if the school needs a PR firm to boost its image? I mean, a PR firm? For an elementary school?

What is going on with BCS's approach to the world that BCS's accomplishments, which are many and well-known, aren't selling themselves?

I'll follow to another thread if you like.

LA Parent-

I do think there is an interesting discussion to be had around choice and cost, but I’ll need some time to clarify my thoughts. My initial reaction includes:

1) Except for some switching barriers, the cost of maintaining choice in our educational system is not that great.

2) Maintaining choice in the educational system is a public good and additional costs associated with it should be shared equally.

3) Insistence that Charter Schools bear the cost for providing choice in the system provides preferential treatment for the existing choice of district run schools. The current model for our schools does not deserve special treatment simply because it was there first.

I do not think there is an interesting discussion around BCS’ use of a PR firm. Recruiting (which has been done well), and Community Relations (obviously botched horribly), are required for BCS’ mission, but these activities are not necessarily core competencies of our staff. Having an outside firm help with these activities makes perfect sense.

BCS Parent -

PR Firm: Point well taken on core competencies, but many (most? all?) other charters operate without PR. Something to consider.

"Cost is not that great": "Hi, class. Remember how Billy and Bobby and Timmy chose to go to another school? Well, to 'maintain' their choice, the other 23 of you have to go to schools in other neighborhoods, and the three of them get the only school in this neighborhood."

"Public good": Agree.

"Costs should be shared equally": What costs for "choice" does BCS bear? It gets to select its own size, students and curriculum, and it gets to make demands on the public fisc (albeit on a different funding model than the district). It operates with no public accountability. These aren't criticisms, just describing the "costs." On space in paricular, the district alone has to provide space for all who may come - even if it does not know how many that is, or how they will split between schools. The district alone has to bear legacy costs and the costs of making a facilities offer (which is much more time-consuming than a request).

"Special treatment": I think primacy deserves priority and reject the idea that my children receive "special treatment" by attending their neighborhood school. But even aside from that the district has to provide the schools of first and last resort, as well as schools serving all abilities and in-district locations. BCS can change its mission or fold if it chooses; LASD cannot.

Thanks for the replies LA Parent. The discussion has helped me better understand some of the issues.

I think that we actually agree on quite a few things. School choice, neighborhood schools, and avoiding disruption of existing students all have value – we are just placing differing relative values on those. I believe that school choice – real school choice where it can compete with equal facilities and funding, is important enough to make some sacrifices. My (wildly unrealistic) two campus solution is one way to dramatically reduce the effect to existing students and to preserve (at least in some respects) neighborhood schools.

LA Parent-

On your “costs” comments I probably agree more than disagree. If BCS were to become a more integrated/embraced part of the district some kind of agreement would need to be reached that addressed at least some of the points that you and others have brought up. I doubt you’ll find anyone who doesn’t want a multi-year agreement that figures out how to handle any future growth in a sane fashion. On the governance and transparency side, I don’t really have all of the details. As has been pointed out elsewhere, non-elected boards are not uncommon for public agencies (hospitals, fire districts, etc…), and there is accountability to our chartering agency, California educational standards and to the public who will simply not enroll if we are not providing a valued education. I also think that BCS might be far more transparent then people realize: board meetings are open to the public and there is a lot of information available (both informal statements and formal/legal documents). But if there were a different structure that could enhance accountability and transparency without sacrificing on the flexibility and agility that make charters so effective, I am all for it.

LA Parent-

Fair sharing of legacy costs: To the extent that district and community as a whole have built up an unfunded liability, I do not believe that BCS should be able to benefit by ducking out of that liability. You might have the beginning of an argument that would convince me that BCS should not receive 100% of the per pupil funding that district receives (or that it needs to figure out another mechanism to make sure that it is shouldering its fair share). BCS shouldn’t have to pay for any ongoing problems in the districts’ financial model, but cleaving off a group of students and asking the others to shoulder an increased share of existing liabilities is very clearly not right.

LA Parent-

“But even aside from that the district has to provide the schools of first and last resort, as well as schools serving all abilities and in-district locations. BCS can change its mission or fold if it chooses; LASD cannot.”
There is nothing in the BCS mission or curriculum that should discourage any student from any location in the district from applying. We have kids from all over the district and kids with all sorts of learning styles and issues. The individualized teaching and tight coordination with parents is very well-suited to overcoming challenges.

The Mandarin instruction vis-à-vis ELL students may be the one exception, at least in terms of attracting kids to the program. Although, I think we should be careful about assuming what the parents of ELL students want and the capabilities of those children. (Why not trilingual by 7th grade?!). Even if Mandarin + ELL where incompatible, is that reason enough to not offer foreign language instruction starting at grade K somewhere in the district?

(continued)

One thing in these discussions you need to be careful about is the word "better".

Many parents in LASD schools seem to have no problem "imagining" that BCS teachers and its program are higher in quality (the grass is always greener, etc.).

If you look at LASD and BCS teachers and programs as "products" in the marketplace, it's very important to understand that one product has intense, professional and coordinated marketing associated with it, and the other one has nothing. BCS runs unopposed in the marketplace, so it's no surprise that they "win" in it.

Before you assume that this is okay because you are a BCS supporter, I'd only ask that you take the long view here: what is to stop the next BCS and the next one and the next one from coming to our top-ranked school district and carpet-bombing us with marketing materials and detracting from BOTH programs?

If the argument about "quality" is disconnected from objective measurements, that's exactly what we'll have.

Right now, sadly, we only have ONE form of objective measurement: test scores. You might not think they are the be-all end-all for determining quality, there is NO OTHER WAY short of a shouting match of determining the empirical quality (i.e. without context, such as the student mix taken into account) of a school.

So in short, I don't concede that our public schools here are inferior to the BCS program AT ALL--we chose public school OVER BCS for its superior education quality.

Great article on why Charter schools should have appointed boards ---> http://titleonederland.blogs.thompson.com/2011/11/01/forget-“quickster”—-on-ed-reform-reed-hastings-is-right/

and another one:
http://theadvocate.com/home/1306291-125/netflix-founder-lays-blame-on.html

I'd like to know what other Los Altos taxpayers think about this issue. Many of us voted for Measure E last year, not only for the children's education but also having a good school district will help maintain the property value we all enjoy. How is supporting a charter school that can accomodate only couple hundred students, not 100% exclusive to the district children going to help with the property values? I want to hear from taxpayers that may not have any emotional attachment to this issue. Are you happy with how your money is spent here? I personally want my tax dollars to be used for educating children, rather than lawsuits.

(continued from above)

LA Parent-

Yes, BCS can change its mission and fold. That is at the heart of choice and flexibility, and it is a great thing. Guess what – the district can change mission and even its fold too. Want some BCS students back – offer a program that attracts them. Right now the district schools have better facilities and funding-- it should be easy. Worried about underserving other student populations if you do this? You should be. While some are so eager to ascribe the worst possible motivations to BCS, there is nothing to stop the school from tuning its offerings to pull in even more students. Let’s compete, and let’s do it fairly with an equal share of public resources given to the students.

LA Parent-
Wanted to thank you again for the discussion. These are, indeed, thorny issues, and the discourse has helped me think through them.

I’ll treat my last series of posts a closing argument (of sorts), and won’t be making further posts in this thread. Will happily read any summary/closing that you care to offer, and hope to see you on other threads.

Lastly, let me offer my very sincere wishes that, regardless of school or facilities, every kid in the district gets the most fulfilling education we can possibly provide.