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Schools

Bullis Charter School to Get a Bigger and Better Library

At the start of the summer, it looked like Bullis Charter School would have no library at all for the coming school year.

Kindergarten through eighth graders at Bullis Charter School (BCS) will soon be getting a newly-built, bigger library.

At the beginning of the summer break, the charter school feared there would be no library at all for the growing school because of the way the facilities are used at the small campus.

BCS, which operates on the Egan Jr. High School grounds, claimed there was a possibility it would have had to pack up its library for the third time, based on insufficient facilities. The Los Altos School District (LASD), which provides its facilities, says it is because of the way the school chooses to use its facilities.

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“If the library is forced into storage again, it will be because BCS was to accommodate the school’s growth and program demands,” said Anne Marie Gallagher, a BCS board member, in June.

The district and BCS have been in litigation in one form or another almost the entire time the charter school has been open, according to Doug Smith, a clerk on the Los Altos School District board.

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The district and the charter school are in litigation regarding its rights under Proposition 39 and its facilities, after BCS filed an appeal last year.

The opened in 2004 and is entitled to “reasonably equivalent” facilities under Proposition 39, a 2000 initiative that required, among other changes, that charter schools be provided facilities by public school districts. 

The charter school is adding another grade level this year – eighth grade – and adding two more classes due to “high demand,” according to Christine Schneider, BCS spokeswoman.

The Los Altos School District approved a facilities offer for BCS in March for the coming school year. This offer included one additional portable building for a teaching classroom, two additional non-teaching spaces and two hours a week for use of the track, gym and tennis courts at the , according to Randall Kenyon, the district's assistant superintendent of business services.

However, sometime in the middle of the summer break, an architectural compliance agency deemed the current library to be non-compliant, according to Gallagher.

So, the school district agreed to change its facilities offer to comply with an approved library, which would be the size of one-and-a-half portables, instead of one, amounting to 1,440 square feet, instead of 960 square feet, according to Smith.

“We had previously passed every inspection from the state but inspections are not always consistent year to year,” Smith said. “We had previously given them a library of this same bigger size and they (chose) to have it used as a different building.”

That previous library would not have met the standards set by the architectural agency, but LASD, however, feels if the school does not have a library, it is up to the charter’s discretion.

“This stems from how BCS chooses to run their program,” Smith said. “They emphasize small class size over some of the other aspects of the program, like libraries.”

There was no library at the school in the 2008-09 school year and for the first half of the 2010-11 school year, due to “insufficient facilities,” according to Schneider.

Smith said the school insists on operating similar to a private school and wishes to have smaller class sizes and more programs than a public school can offer.

“We provide them enough facilities to run a reasonably equivalent program to what LASD offers,” Smith said. “If they want more than that, it's not up to LASD to fund their program to the same level as a private school.”

The new library should be completed before school starts or shortly thereafter, Smith said.

The charter school still feels that it does not have sufficient facilities or equivalent facilities as indicated under Proposition 39, according to Gallagher. 

“The library is an important enrichment option but the science lab is a core part of our curriculum, so that is important to have,” Gallagher said. “We’ll be able to deliver the program in the space we have, but we do believe we are entitled to more facilities.”

LASD is firm that it has provided the charter school with reasonably equivalent facilities, as required by Prop. 39. If LASD students have a certain class size then that is the equivalent for the charter school.

Smith said the school board is set to discuss the science lab and other facilities at BCS in closed session at the first school board meeting of the year on Monday, August 15.

“It's just that the program they want to run doesn't fit into a public school footprint.  For example, they'd love to have 15 kids per classroom,” Smith said. “LASD loads our classes at 22-28 kids per classroom, depending on grade level, so we provide them the equivalent amount of space.”

Bullis Charter School begins its 2011-12 school year on Aug. 17.

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