Assistant Superintendent Randy Kenyon will ask the Los Altos School District trustees to consider sending a letter of interest regarding an old school site in Sunnyvale.
The Raynor Activity Center, a former school that was sold by Santa Clara Unified School District to the city more than three decades ago, was approved for sale last May. By state law, it must first offer the property to public agencies before putting it on the open market.
The deadline for agencies to signal their interest is Dec. 11.
The center is across the street from the Full Circle Farm, which is also on Santa Clara school district land, two churches and the Sunnyvale Parents Pre-School.
I'm an LASD parent, and I've always made that clear. I am not affiliated with any official anything. I have a blog at http://bullisCharterSchoolThoughts.blogspot.com/ , and I am very clear on where I stand on things and *why*. I've also used this same alias for over a year now, and I have an immense amount of "brand equity" in the name, so unlike the disposable aliases in use here, what I say has consequences. So "comment1320" I don't care about your real name, I care about why you are here, what your affiliation is, and what you've said in the past. That is what is relevant to a conversation, not a real legal name, address and phone number.
It is a ridiculous idea, probably not legal without the consent of BCS, and shows that the LASD board is merely posturing for public relations reasons -- "well, we offered you a single site". I think the real reason they are doing it is to scare away prospective parents. In reducing the expected enrollment numbers which anticipated all in district students, they cite the unfavorable public opinion as one of the reasons. It is sad that they are using taxpayer resources to continue to denounce BCS rather than accepting the legal (and practical) limitations and working to find an equitable solution for all. We all deserve better.
It is wonderful that you were able to drive your children and could find a way. However, that just isn't practical for many families. By moving BCS out of district, you are telling other LASD parents who may not have a car, may have jobs, may not be able to afford the gas, that they do not have the same choice in public schools that those who can do. That is not right....Some have faulted (incorrectly I think) BCS for being exclusive. Moving the school so far away will just ensure that is the case as it will be families who have a non-working parent who can spend hours a day driving.
The out of district options is the same -- no parent would accept that. The same for splitting BCS into multiple locations. Is there another school out there that would accept that? Common sense tells you that it is not practical from a program/administrative standpoint. LASD needs to work a solution with the assets they have not invest millions of dollars in far away places. If there were no BCS, they would have to figure out how to fit 600 more students on their existing sites. It should be no different for BCS. Isn't it time for the BoT to be leaders? Make some difficult decisions and move forward. The community is ready for a long term solution. It is clear that the BoT is not.
Stop chasing ghosts. The BCS demographics data show basically nil socio economic disadvantaged students, so your comment regarding the affordability of gas is misguided. Who knows, the Sunnyvale site might be closer to where the few socio economic disadvantaged BCS students live and it may benefit them. If there was some way to know where they live... Perhaps a shuttle bus is an easy solution if a site is found slightly outside of the district. It sounds like there are items to overcome with the Sunnyvale site regarding retrofitting, etc. So, it may not work out. Let's look at the options: BCS sharing campuses, both sides do not seem to like that. BCS displacing an existing site, unprecidented and the courts will not hand over an existing high performing school. New 10 acre site provided by district, limited to none affordable in district options. New site provided by BCS, let's not forget BCS can control their destiny through non litigation options.
BCS demographics are similar to those for LASD. We are doing tremendous outreach to the few pockets of lower income students and are seeing the results of that. This proposal would stop that. We cannot accept out of district children without affecting the Prop 39 requests -- for each out of district child, we get no classrooms space. Hard to run a school with no classrooms. Not chasing ghosts -- the BoT is just stirring the pot to ensure the legal suits continue. I wish they would have listened to the results of their own community input meeting...
The BoT is listening to the majority of the community and if you read the input meeting notes that are available you will see that the path they are headed down is following the input received from the meetings. And if you do not like the path the BoT and the community is headed, BCS can control their own facilities but they have chosen not to.
BCS asks for $5,000 and gets, on average, $5000--about 10 times more. The BCS average donation is the same as the top 1% of donors to LASD. That BCS has the same demographics as the wider LASD is laughable. BCS can and has expelled students from its school who "don't work out". This is called "creaming" in public education lingo: locating the top-scoring and throwing away the bottom-scoring. One thing that *is* the same between BCS and LASD is test scores--even with none of the more difficult educational problems, BCS only manages to have test scores of 1-2% better than LASD on a good year, and a dead heat in other years. This is an academic failure, not a success. The BCS program is NOT better than LASD's, only their marketing materials are better.
So no, you do not have some sort of god-given "right' to have whatever school you want to have at taxpayer expense just like you do not have a right to force the post office to deliver your letter sooner than others. If you are using public resources, you get in line with the rest of us. Three other things: 1. LASD has neighborhood schools, so they are in local neighborhoods. Would it make sense for LASD to put a Magnet (choice) program in that Sunnyvale location? Absolutely. Charter schools are NOT neighborhood schools, so it's perfectly valid for LASD to locate BCS in the most practical location necessary. 2. All of our schools are already "split up" in the sense that we all have K-6/7-8 model. So yes, all LASD parents accept this, and very much support it. 3. As others here have mentioned, there is NO WAY a long-term solution for BCS can be crafted now since the BCS board has promised to double the school's size in a few years. I personally bet the financial model of the school will blow up, and parents are going to flee after they learn they've been the victim of "bait and switch", but we have no choice but to take the threat seriously. Once we figure out the long-term stability of the school, we can all plan accordingly.
As for special ed, I believe that you are quite aware that we have many kids with IEP's and special needs in classrooms. They receive special services as needed. Because of our individual approach and higher student-teacher ratio, such students can be in regular classrooms and still receive the services they need.
What I can state with most certainty is that LASD believes they will be serving 570 plus in-district students for BCS in the next school year. I take that language as meaning they are LASD students I applaud the District for searching for a tenth site. The Sunnyvale site does have some problems that come with it. Over a hundred LAH children attend BCS. It represent only be about a fifth of their total population ( so much for the LAH preference being so harmful). Yet commuting to a Sunnyvale site in the weekday morning traffic, I assure you, is much more than a 15 to 20 minutes commute for our kids. I heard a number of SR parents making their case that the Egan site was not appropriate and not safe. I hear now more LASD parents saying Sunnvale should work fine for BCS I think there is a very fine line between what is reasonably equivalent and what is something we expect BCS to swallow but LASD parents will have nothing to do with the same solution. I really hope this gets settled soon. If we wait for the courts to decide we will spend a ton more money and one side or the other will lose.
First, as I understand it, the District is looking for data surrounding donors in relation to its defense of the attorney fees recovery. Rich people trying to make new law don't get to have their attorney fees covered. LASD needs the data to prove their case. (I'm massively summarizing here). Next, although I haven't heard the specific arguments, SR serves a sizable special ed population which presents facilities issues. Also, moving these sorts of students is harder on them than typical students. Regardless, an SR "swap" doesn't really solve any problems, so it's just moving them just to move them--all because BCS wants prettier buildings. Until we have a new campus, we're in a zero-sum game: one of the kids has to get the bedroom in the basement (which to be clear is fully heated, safe and effective and viable--just not as cool). Obviously the Sunnyvale site is not ideal, but it might work as a stop-gap until we build a new campus somewhere close. I've rarely heard of an ideal solution also being the free solution. Actually I've never heard that.
Thanks for your comments. I have privately met with Board members from both sides. Trying to get them together again seems almost impossible. To be honest, both sides seem to point to the other side saying they are the ones being unreasonable. This is a very tough issue and both sides have very legitimate points of view. Six months ago the Town of Los Altos Hills did a complete review of all potential available land. There was only one parcel that could have come close to the size requirements, was way up in the Hills and was zoned for residentail use only.We did report this to the District. Remember the Hills has no commercial business with most lots one acre in size. Years ago we did have land for more schools but it is my understanding they were either sold and or used to lease to private schools like Pinewood that nets PAUSD over a million dollars a year. I should also say that I believe fundamentally that it is LASD's problem because they have had this facilities requirement for years and (not being critical here) have probably not given it the attention it needs other than the yearly battles for space.I believe the LASD Board now takes seriously the need for a long term solution and I applaud them for their latest efforts
CDE data from last year (the last available) indicates that BCS has 29 special education students in a total population of 465, or 6.2%. LASD has 462 special education students in a total population of 4486, or 10.3%. Further, BCS spends an average of $7,626 per special education student, as compared to an average of $15,842 spent by LASD. Data shows that BCS has NEVER spent all of the special education "revenue" available to it from the SELPA, whereas LASD spend roughly twice the SELPA revenue to serve their special education students. The disparity between the LASD and BCS special education populations and spending is consistent with that found by the US Government Accountability Office in their June 2012 report entitled "Charter Schools: Additional Federal Attention Needed to Help Protect Access for Students with Disabilities." So your statement is correct, but incomplete and misleading.
(1) I just made that one up. (2) I got that off some ridiculous slander website with "scam" in the name. (3) I added a couple zeros to the end to make my point. (4) Ron Haley said it, so it must be true. (5) Found it in the BCS dumpster. (6) 2 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 hours, yeah, yeah, what's the difference? Thank you. That should suffice.
Can you help me understand your math? It sounds like LASD spends $15,842 per special ed student which is "roughly twice" the SELPA amount. That makes it sound like the SELPA amount is $7,921. BCS spends $7,626 be special ed student. I am just trying to understand what the difference for BCS is, 3-4% from SELPA does not seem too significant to me. Why does LASD spend so much more? Is it the type of special ed student? Thank you for the clarifications
Would LASD be willing to continue to share the Egan campus, adjusted for BCS growth, while looking for a long term solution? Though that is not optimal for either BCS or Egan, it would seem more fair. Moving BCS to Sunnyvale (which is probably not legal in any case) would work to drive down enrollment to BCS and make it an exclusive school for those who can afford to spend 1.5 hours a day driving kids. Same for a 3 way campus split -- it would effectively prevent a large segment of working parents from BCS. Isn't that really what the LASD Board is doing? What I don't understand is why. The most affected schools would be Almond and Santa Rita which would have another 160 students . Parcel tax and Foundation money per student would decrease (unlikely displaced BCS parents would donate). And yes, the litigation would continue. How does that alternative help anyone?
Special education funding for both BCS and LASD comes from a SELPA (Special Education Local Plan Area). The amount of funding is some amount per ENROLLED student, not per SPECIAL EDUCATION student and seems to average between $600 and $800 per enrolled student. So the institution is allocated a chunk of money which they then use to pay for special education services. If you have relatively fewer special education students relative to your population, the amount you have per special education student is higher. The cost of providing special education services is a function of the degree of need of each special education student. For example, it might cost relatively little to provide speech services vs. services to a child on the autism spectrum. In California, public schools are required to educate all students, including special education students. There are various studies which try to look at why charter schools have a lower population of special education students as compared to traditional public schools, and the same studies suggest that charter schools also serve special education students who require less intensive services. As an example, the GAO report is a pretty good analysis of this, and BCS is a good example of the conclusions reached in that report. This may not have answered your question, so please ask again if not.