As you can imagine, with the Board set to decide on its Preliminary Facilities Offer (emphasis on preliminary) pursuant to Prop 39 for BCS Monday night, we have all been receiving email from concerned parents and community members. I welcome the engagement and am so glad to see more people getting involved!
However, when reading all these emails I have discovered common misunderstandings and questions. Therefore, I have decided to craft an FAQ to have a central location where concerned citizens can find answers about the recent history regarding LASD, BCS, the five year agreement and the Prop 39 process. I hope you find this helpful! I will add more questions and answers as I get them. Frequently Asked Questions: What is Prop 39? It is a group of laws created in 2000 and revised over the years that dictates how charter schools are created, approved, governed and given facilities, among many other things. Tell me about the 5 Year Agreement. I am glad you asked. In July 2014, LASD and BCS agreed to a five year agreement to halt the Prop 39 process and any lawsuits regarding the same. That agreement split BCS between Egan and Blach, changed their enrollment preference from Los Altos Hills, to all children in LASD and capped the charter school's enrollment at 900. That agreement will end on June 30, 2019. Does LASD have oversight over BCS? No. BCS is chartered by the Santa Clara County Board of Education (SCCBOE) and is overseen by them. Why doesn't LASD have oversight over BCS? When BCS was created in 2003, they asked to be chartered by LASD and LASD refused. Pursuant to Prop 39, BCS appealed to the SCCBOE for approval and oversight and the County ultimately approved (first giving LASD one more bite of the apple, that it refused). If LASD does not govern BCS, why does it have to provide them facilities? According to Prop 39, even if a charter school is not authorized by a local school district, if the bulk of the charter school's students come from the local school district, the local school district must provide reasonably equivalent facilities to the charter school for those kids that would have otherwise been educated by the local school district (in district). In short, Prop 39 dictates that LASD must provide facilities to all the in district student's BCS enrolls and those facilities must be reasonably equivalent to the facilities LASD students enjoy. Why are we starting the Prop 39 process again? As stated above, the five year agreement expires 6/30/19. Therefore, with no new agreement reached yet, the process must start back up again for the charter school to receive facilities from the district. While BCS and LASD has been in ongoing discussions to create another long term agreement for quite some time now, no agreement has been reached as of yet. Negotiations are ongoing and we have made some real progress. As of 2/6/19 both sides agreed to delay Prop. 39 by 2 weeks to enable continued productive negotiations. Tell me about the Prop 39 process. It is a process that happens every year in advance of the next school year unless there is another agreement in place. The process is not great for either LASD or BCS and an agreement is preferable to going through it. However, no agreement is currently in place. The process is as follows:
Why is the Board considering placing BCS on a 3rd campus in its Prop 39 Preliminary Facilities Offer? The short answer to why the Board is considering placing the added enrollment of BCS to a 3rd campus is that (1) we cannot easily and in such a short time period hand over an entire campus (Egan, BCS's requested facility) to BCS in such a short time period (a logistics nightmare, to say the least) and (2) Egan and Blach (the campuses already housing BCS) are either at capacity (Egan) or in flood plain (Blach) causing any construction to cost too much for a short term solution. We do not see this as a long term solution. Why isn't there a new long term agreement in place yet? LASD and BCS have been negotiating a long term agreement for just over a year now. An agreement has not been reached. To date, the negotiations have not resulted in a compromise that would ensure the long term health of LASD. However, negotiations are set to restart shortly. LASD believes a long term agreement is in the best interest of LASD, BCS and the community at large. It will lead to peace and stability, but will involve difficult compromises on both sides. Either way, an agreement is preferable to the Prop 39 process, which by its definition is short term in nature. What is the status of long term negotiations? Representatives from the BCS and LASD Boards met on February 5, 2019 as part of ongoing negotiations in pursuit of a long term facilities agreement. We had a productive session and believe we can come to a mutually beneficial solution, albeit with difficult compromises on both sides. As such, both sides have agreed to extend the upcoming Prop 39 deadlines two weeks to focus on continued negotiations. Can LASD rent commercial property and place BCS on it? Many constituents have asked this question. The answer is: No. While a charter school can choose to self site on a commercial property, a school district is not allowed under Prop. 39 to require a charter school to do the same. Can't you just move BCS into the district offices in the short term? If it were that simple we would. The district offices were constructed as offices and not classrooms. In order to convert them to classrooms and offer them to the charter school plans would need to be drawn for conversion, approved by the state and then the construction project finished. Therefore, it can't be done in a short time frame and will likely be cost inefficient. This week's closed session begins at 5:00pm. The board will reconvene for open session starting around 7pm in the LASD Board Room. The entire agenda and supporting documentation can be found here.
Every year, representatives from each LASD school present at a board meeting. Oak Avenue Elementary School will present this week regarding their work with the Writing Workshop. We start our Action and Discussion items off with the Audited Financial Report for the 2017/2018 school year presented by Randy and LASD's auditor Chavan & Associates. This is an action item. The auditor's presentation and the District's financial report for the 2017/2018 school year may be found using the link above under agenda item I.1. The auditor "finds no exceptions" (in plain english that means the auditor found nothing wrong). Next up Randy will present the 2019/20 State Budget. This is a discussion item and Randy's presentation can be found under agenda I.2. According to Randy, the only "contribution" LASD will receive from the state this coming year and the next is a 1% reduction in our contribution to CALSTRS (teacher pension). This means that the District will have roughly $250,000 more a year to work with than expected. As we are a locally funded district (in large part funded by property taxes), any monies we receive from the state is really a bonus for us. However, it is important to note, that even with this "bonus" our schools are not fully funded. Some years our bonus is over $1 million, some years it is not. It depends on the economic health of the state and the Governor's priorities in any given year. The Citizens Advisory Committee for Finance (CACF) will present a Mid-Year Report. This is a discussion item and their presentation and a letter in support of the presentation can be found under agenda I.3. CACF is recommending that the District establish a $10 million sinking maintenance fund for our facilities from the Measure N proceeds as soon as possible. They believe that it is the best course of action considering we have nothing left in Deferred Maintenance as of this year and we have aging facilities. Speaking of Measure N, LASD's bond financial advisor asks that we approve Selection of Underwriters for the the Sale of Bond Anticipation Notes. This is an action item and his presentation can be found under agenda item I.4. Mr. Olson is asking us to approve the selection of two underwriters, Raymond James as the lead underwriter and Barclays as the co-manager. Now we get to the reason you are even reading this blog or want to come to the meeting Monday night. Randy will present the Preliminary Offer of Facilities to Bullis Charter School for 2019/20 that is due February 1, 2019 to the charter school. This is an action item and a copy of the draft offer and staff's presentation and recommendation can be found under agenda item I.5. I highly recommend you read both documents. Please note, LASD absolutely prefers a long term agreement with BCS to the Prop 39 process. Prop 39 leads to angst and uncertainty for LASD, BCS and the entire community from year to year. A long term agreement is in the best interest of everyone who lives in the LASD boundaries and will bring back the peace and certainty we enjoyed under the five year agreement. However, we must go through the Prop 39 process until a long term agreement is reached. For our Preliminary Facilities Offer staff recommends that based on the fact that we don't have enough lead time to manage the handover a campus and displacement of an entire school community, we can't fit any more students at an already overcrowded Egan, and that it is not fiscally prudent to place short term facilities on the flood plain that is Blach, it is in the best interests of all LASD and BCS students that we place the 220 more in-district BCS enrolled for the 19/20 school at a third (elementary) campus. The presentation evaluates each and every elementary school campus considering traffic, disruption, cost, and whether it could be part of a multi year solution to hold BCS's projected unilateral growth to 1,200. Based on those factors, the district staff recommends that the 3rd campus be Loyola Elementary School. Staff requests the Board approve the Preliminary Facilities Offer to BCS and determine which elementary school campus should house the 220 more in-district BCS students. Please come and give us your input or email us at [email protected]. We value your opinions and will consider them while making our final decision regarding the Preliminary Facilities Offer to BCS for 19/20 school year. Are you still reading? Well, you are in luck. Next, the Board is asked to authorize the superintendent to execute the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with City of Mountain View. This in an action item and the MOU can be found under agenda item I.6. This agreement memorializes the structure of the Transfer of Development Rights program already approved and signed by the City of Mountain View. This agreement gives the District the ability to sell the development rights it will acquire with the purchase of the 10th site parcel to already willing buyers for $130/square for a grand total of $79.3 million. This does not include the Joint Use Agreement (JUA) with the City of Mountain View, which will come back to us at a later time (and will memorialize our sharing agreement with the City of Mountain View of the fields and gym in consideration of their contribution of $23 million to the purchase price of the 10th site). Please note, this is just the highlights of what is on the agenda for the 1/28/2019 meeting. You can inform yourself about the rest of the agenda at the link provided above. As always, feel free to email me with any questions. This week closed session begins at 5:00pm. The board will reconvene for open session starting around 7pm in the LASD Board Room. The entire agenda can be found here.
Every year, representatives from each LASD school presents at a board meeting. Covington Elementary School will present this week regarding how collaboration leads to better student outcomes. Next up, Sandra McGonagle will update the board regarding the Junior High School Math Pathways. At a prior board meeting, and at my board office hours, concerned parents whose children would be effected by the change in the math pathways stated their misgivings. After hearing their concerns, the board directed staff (Sandra) to come back at the next meeting to see how we could address these parents' concerns. This week Sandra will present us with her prospective changes to the math pathways and her reasoning for the changes. This is a discussion item and no action will be taken. Her presentation can be found under agenda item I.1 using the link above. Please note, the math pathway changes will be delayed a year in order to ensure it is implemented in an even more thoughtful manner with all parties (teachers and children) more prepared for the transition. Before she sits down, Sandra will next present the results of the Teacher Survey. This is a discussion item and no action will be taken. Her presentation showcasing the results can be found under agenda item I.2 using the link above. The presentation highlights the satisfaction teachers have toward new curriculum initiatives and their comfort level in teaching the same to the children and modeling for other teachers. Now, for the moment you have all been waiting for, the next item agenda is starts a discussion regarding Facilities for Bullis Charter School. This is a discussion item, and Randy's presentation can be found under agenda item I.3. BCS submitted a facilities request pursuant to Proposition 39 on November 1st showing an enrollment growth to 1,058 in-district students (with a total of 1,100 in and out of district students) in the 2019/20 school year and requesting exclusive use of Egan Junior High. On December 1st the Board informed BCS that we did not object to their enrollment numbers, but asked that they receive approval for their growth from their chartering authority (the County). Our facilities discussions on Monday and our special meeting on Wednesday, January 16th are in anticipation of and in preparation for our Preliminary Facilities Offer to the charter school due on February 1st. In response to BCS's unilateral growth without community input, I find it imperative and the Board's duty to make decisions in the best interest of the entire Los Altos School District community and with that same community's input. That being said, I also believe a negotiated long term agreement with BCS is in the best interest of the District, BCS and the entire community and will work with the reality BCS has presented us with to come up with that agreement. I truly look forward to not only Randy's presentation on Monday, but the public's engagement and input in this matter both on Monday and Wednesday. We have some tough decisions ahead of us that will involve giving students that attend LASD schools and BCS the same consideration and will most definitely lead to difficult compromises on both sides. I hope you can attend and be part of the process! Following the Prop 39 discussions, we actually have other business to attend to. Next up, Tamara Fagin has been nominated to the Citizen's Oversight Committee (Bond Oversight) to fill a vacant seat specifically for a member of a taxpayer's association. This is an action item and the Board is asked to approve her appointment. Her application can be found under agenda item I.4. Last, but not least, the board is asked to review a draft of the 2019-20 District Calendar. The calendar is always drafted to be consistent with the MVLA High School District's calendar. This is a discussion item and will be approved at the next regularly scheduled meeting. The draft calendar can be found as an attachment to agenda item I.5. For those of you planning summer camps, the first day of school is August 21, 2019. Please note, this is just the highlights of what is on the agenda for the 1/14/2019 meeting. You can inform yourself about the rest of the agenda at the link provided above. As always, feel free to email me with any questions. |
Jessica SpeiserThanks to your support, I joined the Los Altos School District (LASD) Board of Trustees in December 2016. I finished my tenure as Board President after serving as such from December 2018 to December 2019. I am currently Board Vice President. As usual, I will use this blog to continue updating you on upcoming Board meetings and make you aware of upcoming office hours and community events. Archives
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