Schools

School District Letter On Bullis Charter School FUA

The stalemate continues over a Facilities Use Agreement for Bullis Charter School, between the school and Los Altos School District.


The Los Altos School District has written a letter to the community, regarding Bullis Charter School and the controversy over a Facilities Use Agreement. That letter is published here, in full.

Los Altos Patch has reached out to Bullis for a similar statement. When it is received, it will be published.

LASD Letter:

Dear Parents, Guardians, and Community Members-

 

LASD is very anxious to get the school year underway.  Our staff has been preparing, and our teachers have worked through the summer on professional development and curriculum enhancements.  We have new teachers on board, and are excited to be starting the year with specialized STEM instructors on every elementary school campus.  It promises to be a remarkable year.

Unfortunately, the start with BCS is already very difficult, which is why I am writing today.  BCS currently claims that they are “locked out” of facilities prepared by LASD, which is incorrect.  In times like this, it is important to ensure that folks have all the facts.

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The April 1 Final Offer from LASD to BCS included a couple of key provisions, namely:

  • Capacity limits of 469 students at Egan, and 146 students at Blach.  These limits were set based on the BCS projected in-district enrollment (not the District’s counter-projections, as we are legally permitted to do)
  • Students in grades K-3 are not permitted access to Blach.  The District has not undergone the expense of duplicating facilities required for students in those grade levels.  All BCS students K-3 can be accommodated at the Egan Site
  • Access to the facilities is conditioned on BCS executing a facilities use agreement.  A draft version was attached to the April 1st Final Offer.
 

The District requires a Facilities Use Agreement (FUA) from every party that uses District Facilities.  It’s a simple document that spells out what uses are permitted and indicates that the parties agree to be bound by those limits.  BCS has executed these in the past, and in fact, a group of BCS parents who used school facilities this summer executed an FUA.

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The Charter School law specifically calls out the requirement of an FUA, and goes so far as to call out the minimum required elements.    In spite of that, BCS has previously contested the District’s requirement of a signed FUA in the 2009-10 litigation.  In that ruling, which remains binding on both parties, the courts upheld the District’s right to require that agreement.  No one would expect to walk away with a rental car without signing the contract, and the FUA is the equivalent document for school facilities.

This summer, BCS also contested the legality of splitting them across two campuses, and the courts further upheld the District’s right to do so.  Allocating space for BCS on two campuses is not arbitrary.  We are trying to distribute the impact of our growing population of all students across the geographic sites that we have.  If BCS places all of their students on a single location in addition to the ~500 District students at that site, it creates substantial impact for the people who live near that location.  California has specific laws that govern this, including the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  One of the steps the Board had to take this spring when approving the final offer was to examine whether the project fit under our current CEQA authorizations.  Those limits aren’t arbitrary- they are driven by traffic counts, car trips, noise measurements and various other engineering practices designed to ensure quality of life for all members of the community.  The District is merely working within the legal obligations we have to District Students, BCS students, and the community at large.

There was a fair bit of discussion over the past few days about some modest changes the District proposed to the FUA.  BCS has strongly objected to those provisions, so on Tuesday night last week, LASD Trustee Mark Goines and I met with two BCS board members.  We proposed that both simply revert back to the April 1st draft agreement that BCS already reviewed and did not challenge in court.  BCS requested a series of discussions to address concerns they have with the FUA, and the District’s asked that we include the longer term interest of working together to pass a bond and build a new school for BCS.  In that discussion, all four of us agreed that we could support that approach.  However, as of this morning, the District has not yet received a fully executed version of the April 1st draft FUA.

I also want to dispel the myth that the District hasn't engaged BCS in discussions about the 2013-14 facilities.  Throughout this summer, the District office has been in regular communication with BCS about specifics of the implementation.  The BCS Board members on their Prop 39 committee have requested changes to many of the new Blach facilities, and the District has accommodated many, if not most, of those requests.  We've added more sinks to the flex space, changed the configuration of the library, etc., all at BCS's request and often at substantial cost to the District.  No where in those communications did they ever raise the specific concern about the grade level restrictions or the site capacity limits.   The first time those issues were placed on the table (other than the court case this summer) was the evening of August 6th.

The District stands willing and ready to deliver the facilities we promised to BCS in the April 1st Final Offer.  Further, we look forward to talking to BCS about their concerns, and hearing from the community about how we balance BCS’s desires with the impact to the larger community.  The choice is now up to BCS- either accept the facilities offer that they have already litigated, or choose to self-site.  It is up to them to take the necessary legal step of signing the FUA to take possession.

Over the weekend BCS posted their version of an FUA which lacks appropriate controls over the number of students allowed to utilize each school site.  LASD has posted our proposed language in the FUA from April 1, 2013, on the district website.  This LASD version mirrors the verbal agreement reached by the LASD and BCS representatives on Tuesday night.  The District expects that BCS will appreciate BCS’s legal responsibilities and will execute the facilities agreement provided by the District soon.  The facilities are available to BCS as soon as it does so.

We look forward to the start of the school year.  LASD has great things in store for your children, and we can't wait to get started with a spectacular 2013-14.

 

Warm Regards,


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