Politics & Government

A Parent's Ideas For Prop. 39 Negotiations: Sharing & Flexibility

Bullis Charter School and the Los Altos School District have begun the formal negotiation portion of the facilities offer process under Prop. 39. Besides square footage, one parent suggests that functionality needs to be part of the approach.

 

Editor's note: The following letter was sent to the boards of both Bullis Charter School and the Los Altos School District by a Gardner Bullis parent earlier last week. Patch is printing it with permission.

Dear Los Altos School District Board of Trustees and Bullis Charter School Board of Directors,

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As we begin the annual Proposition 39 facilities negotiations, I urge you both to work towards accomplishing a facilities arrangement that is less fraught with discord than it has been in the past. At the heart of the matter lies the question of what is “reasonably equivalent.” But unfortunately, this is a very “soft” measure of how to allocate facilities and can be very different definitions depending on your perspective. I am sure anyone with children knows how fruitless discussing fairness can be at times. (My six, seven and ten year olds spend a great amount of energy lobbying for their version of fair with the other two, for instance.) 

In my estimation, the use of the word “reasonable” assumes that an exact equivalence is unlikely, so compromise and trade-offs by both parties is an expectation of the end result. To that end, I’d like to propose some potential compromises that could be used to frame this year’s discussion about the facilities agreement.

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First, I think it would better serve both programs to focus on functionality versus aggregate square footage. In light of limited existing facility resources and a limited capital expenditures fund, why are we duplicating lightly used facility spaces, such as the lunch serveries or nurses’ stations? Couldn't it be “reasonable” to offer BCS usage of Egan and Blach’s nurses’ station 100% of the time and provide them a desk, a locked filing cabinet (for confidential student records) and a small storage cabinet for supplies in the existing nurses' station? The nurses should be expected to act professionally and treat each other and the other students with courtesy, just as you or I would be expected to do with our own office-mates in our professional lives. Nurses are regularly expected to maintain confidentiality of patients in order to keep their jobs, and more importantly their licenses, so there should be no concern of inappropriate use of information. If multiple students need medical attention, the next student could wait outside (just as they do now) if the nurse or nurses are occupied with a current student. And if it is an emergency that cannot handle a five minute trek across campus to a shared nurse’s station, it is most likely an emergency that cannot be handled by the nurse’s at our schools anyhow. Applying similar logic with the lunch serveries, why do we need to provide duplicative space, instead of an additional fridge and storage shelves? At worst, lunches and snack breaks could be staggered so as not to overlap and heck if we were all acting civil it is not unreasonable to expect both schools to provide lunch at the same time each using one of the two server windows. If emotions are still too high for this kind of sharing to be practical, perhaps both sides should be expected to concede something else in order to offset the cost of building the lesser used duplicative facilities.

Similarly, if BCS’ program is to be split, it is a reasonable expectation that certain more essential functions may need to be duplicated at each of their campuses, such as administrative offices and libraries. In recognition of this, I think it is a reasonable compromise for BCS to willingly accept less aggregate space at both campuses. In addition, it makes better programmatic sense to offer BCS blocks of 40 minutes at a time, at a minimum, (whether mathematically they are due this or not) for the shared facility spaces like the gym, track or science labs, and for BCS to accept less space elsewhere or offer to compensate the district somehow in return if it were to exceed their mathematical allocation of minutes.

Second, both sides could stand to be a little more flexible. BCS needs to recognize that sometimes there are construction/delivery delays outside of LASD’s control and that upon further analysis programmatic needs may suggest that they need to alter their original space sharing plans. LASD needs to be open to some of the creative solutions for reconfiguration that BCS is suggesting (like additional parking out of the scrub area in front of the track at Blach). LASD should already be ordering portables and furniture for next year, as it is often easier and cheaper to cancel orders than to pay for expedited shipping or recover from unknown shortages and backordering, in order to provide better flexibility as school begins next year, instead of the annual scramble.  BCS should be willing to contribute towards the cost of reconfiguring space that would not typically be a cost that LASD would be burdened with. And if BCS is willing to pay for an extra portable or playground equipment and fit it within the aggregate space they are allocated, why should they not be allowed the flexibility to do so, providing they ask LASD for permission and are willing to work through potential issues like locations of current utilities?

Third, while mathematical analysis may determine the number of classroom portables based on LASD classroom loading, it should not prevent BCS from adding their own portables if they should choose to offer a different classroom loading. For instance, if BCS has 60 first graders and LASD loads 30:1, BCS deserves 2 classrooms, but actually BCS would like to operate at 20:1, so they desire three classrooms for those 60 students. In the past, BCS leadership has chosen to sacrifice a library, or flex space, etc to create these additional classrooms. Wouldn't it make better sense for BCS leadership to ask for permission to put additional portables on the campus at their own expense and sacrifice part of their blacktop space instead of their library? The courts have already determined that LASD cannot "count" this extra classroom space as their contribution to the Prop 39 offers, so what is the downside for BCS? A better explanation of the classroom allocation and loading parameters by both boards could also help to de-demonize some of the decisions that either side is getting blamed for that is actually beyond their control.

Fourth, isn't it high time that the expectation be set in the agreement that the principals (or some other designated person with equal authority) of both sharing schools are regularly meeting - say one hour once a month? And if one or both refuse to do it, I personally feel they should be fired or seriously reprimanded. I am floored that this is still a contentious issue and has not been happening regularly in the last 8 years.

Lastly, I think it is important to recognize that there is a flaw in the original logic of Prop 39. Prop 39 assumes that the facilities resources that would be used by the charter school students are already available or would be necessary anyhow, if those students were part of the regular district. In our situation this is simply not true, since to absorb BCS students into LASD schools it is not equivalent from a capital/facilities expenditures perspective. For instance, if LASD were to absorb BCS’ 615 in-district students estimated for next year (assuming they could be equally split across schools & grade levels), it would require at most an additional 24 portables for classrooms, but no additional investment in administrative offices, libraries, additional flex rooms, or to convert grass to blacktop, etc would be needed. BCS as a separate school (whether split or on its own site) require the same 24 classroom portables expense, plus the extra expenses of the other facilities. Perhaps in recognition of this fact, BCS might offer some additional compensation to LASD or be willing to compromise other space.

I sincerely hope that both Boards can take the time to meet and openly discuss the alternatives and compromises they are willing to make in order to achieve a peaceful temporary facilities solution. It is high time that both sets of administrators were able to focus most of their time on determining what happens inside these classrooms and facilities, because in the long run that is really what is going to have the lasting impact on our children, not the layout or size of these facilities.

 

Thank you for your time and attention,

Jennifer Carlstrom

Mother of three students at Gardner Bullis


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