Bullis Ideas: A 10th Campus, Perhaps With Flexibility?

Editor's Note: On New Year's Day, Patch asked readers to contribute ideas, large and small, to helping to resolve the facilities issue regarding Bullis Charter School (BCS) and the Los Altos School District (LASD). It could be as simple as an approach, or a more fully thought-out plan.

Some have written about sites for their advantages and disadvantages, others have written about ideas that go beyond the charter school to address growing enrollment. We don't expect a magic bullet to appear, but who knows? The point was to start out the new year on a positive and constructive note, with members of our community thinking about solutions and a way forward.

We are publishing one each day. This letter below is the second of several we have received, and we welcome more contributions from readers:

I believe Los Altos needs a new campus. Not only do we have a charter school which has a high percentage of its students coming from Los Altos / Los Altos Hills but the current LASD schools are pretty full already.

Although demographers claim that student levels are not expected to rise I don't agree. New, condensed housing is being built throughout Los Altos and the Mountain View area that feeds into LASD. Older Los Altos residents, having raised their families, are beginning to move into smaller units, freeing up larger houses for growing families. I believe our student population is going to grow over the next five to ten years – a lot!

Ideally we could find a location and build a new campus for Bullis Charter. But where could we put it? There are lots of large lots in Los Altos Hills but cost would be prohibitive (the Fenwick property would be ideal but the cost approaches $50 million).  

I have yet to find any other locale large enough to locate a new school site – especially considering Bullis Charter could easily grow to perhaps 1,000 students in the near future.

The subject of Hillview keeps coming up but the campus is in sad shape and currently services other community needs. Could these current services be moved to the Egan Campus (at the Bullis Charter locale) and Bullis Charter moved to Hillview? Hillview, with its limited outdoor facilities, would be marginal at best.

Here's another thought—although I teach at the Gardner Bullis School—since many of the Bullis Charter students come from Los Altos Hills, perhaps land could be acquired adjacent to Gardner Bullis. Using careful (environmentally correct) planning along with new portable classrooms (which can be removed easily) the school could gradually shift over to the charter school, capable of holding between 600 and 900 students. Property would have to be acquired / purchased, but just east of Gardner Bullis there is a fair amount of semi-open space.  

But the question of long-term school planning requires forward thinking which seems to be missing these days. Riding past Mitchell Park in Palo Alto I wondered, "What if Mitchell Park was turned into a school when needed and a community park when not?"  Using portables and underground plumbing / electricity it would be fairly simple to design a "U" shaped school that could easily revert to a city park as student levels fell – then returned to a school when student levels rose. Perhaps we could look at the Hillview / Busbarn area as something that could be used in this regard.

—James Thurber

James Thurber is a 4th grade teacher at Gardner Bullis School and a Mountain View resident. He has also taught at Egan Jr. High School during his 10-year career at Los Altos School District. He is a former Navy pilot, a former San Jose Police officer, and once worked for U.S. Sen. John Tunney. He is related to the writer James Thurber, a great uncle.