A Public School At The Hillview Site in Los Altos

By Noah D. Mesel

Parents in the Los Altos School District have decided to take action to keep existing neighborhood schools open.

A petition is being circulated on-line and in paper form urging the Los Altos City Council to make available to LASD the former Hillview Elementary School site so that Bullis Charter School (BCS) can have a permanent home. 

The most recent legal wrangling between LASD and BCS has generated tremendous public energy around solving this on-going issue without forcing the closure of yet another Los Altos elementary school in order to make room for BCS. 

Parents from more than a dozen families from all four elementary schools threatened with closure met recently to discuss potential options. LASD's proposed options of school closures along with seeking approval of a $120 million bond measure with no supporting details was not palatable to the group. Nowhere else in Silicon Valley do people get tens of millions of dollars without a more specific business plan. 

Even though an effort has been undertaken to find an appropriate site for a new school in Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Mountain View, the obvious first choice is sitting right in front of us. The Hillview Elementary School site, sold to the City of Los Altos during an early decline in LASD enrollment, has been underused for years. Why not make that site available as a BCS campus? 

More than 800 people in Los Altos, Mountain View and Los Altos Hills have signed the petition in the first 20 hours since it was posted on line. Some of those signatories are BCS parents.  

Join your neighbors in sending a message to our elected officials to use Hillview as a school site again! 

Click and vote:  http://signon.org/sign/a-public-school-at-the-1?source=s.fwd&r_by=4586999

Noah D. Mesel is a parent of three students in Los Altos public schools and a member of LASDVoices. LASDVoices is a group of parents who want to preserve high-performing neighborhood schools.