Schools

LIVE BLOG: Los Altos School Board Meeting March 18, 2013

The Los Altos School Board contemplates possible changes to incorporate into the final facilities offer that is due April 1.

 

The Los Altos School Board Tuesday night is scheduled to work on its final facilities offer to Bullis Charter School in a special meeting. 

The meeting will likely be highly attended, as the time frame in the state-required process tightens and many unknowns remain not only outstanding, but seemingly without new avenues for discussion.

Find out what's happening in Los Altoswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In a letter last week, Los Altos School District President Doug Smith told Bullis Charter School President that the district board would continue working within the state timeframe prescribed by Prop. 39 and would not engage in talks without its requested 90-day suspension of legal action.

While acknowledging that Bullis Charter School board members Joe Hurd and Peter Evans had counter-offered a 21-day suspension of litigation, Smith said in the letter that the timeframe was too short to do anything meaningful. He also said as much in the March 11 board meeting, and expressed disappointment with the time that was offered.

Find out what's happening in Los Altoswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The work before the board, now, was to try to incorporate what it could of BCS' counter-proposal that was went March 1. Smith said in the letter that it would be difficult to meet BCS's demands.

The counter-proposal is so far away from that direction that it provides little, if any, meaningful input. Nevertheless, we are carefully analyzing the counter-proposal to see if there are any useful take-aways for us to incorporate in the April 1st final offer.

Patch has attached a comparison table prepared by Assistant Superintendent for Business Randy Kenyon that was to be used during Monday night's meeting. 

Also last week, Bullis Charter School Chairman Ken Moore sent a letter with updated enrollment figures of a projected 616 in-district students and 624 total students.

As of March 8, 624 students have already reserved spots to attend BCS next year, of whom 95 percent reside within the Los Altos School District. Offers of admission are currently outstanding to an additional 24 in-district students. Assuming they either accept enrollment or are replaced by any of the 171 in-district students on the BCS waitlist for next year, 616 district residents will have accepted spots at BCS for the coming school year. BCS is therefore currently expecting total enrollment of approximately 650 K-8 students for the 2013-2014 school year. Furthermore, 695 students remain on the wait list should any spots for the 2013-2014 school year become available.

Follow along the meeting with Los Altos Patch. The two letters and the comparison document are attached. You can also find the comparison document on the LASD website, under the board business link, and the LASD agenda online


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