Proposed Agreement and School Safety

This week's 4/8/19 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.  

Unless you have been hiding under a rock this week, you have probably already heard that the negotiating teams from both LASD and BCS have come to proposed long term (10 year) agreement.  LASD released our agenda earlier than normal to ensure each and every person interested could read the high level deal points and the entire proposed agreement and plan to attend the board meeting this Monday to offer their feedback.  There will be 2 other board meetings (and many other more informal meetings at school sites and the district office) before we make a final decision to accept this proposed agreement.  

The first item on the agenda is discussion of the Proposed 10-Year Facilities Agreement with Bullis Charter School.  The presentation and the proposed agreement can be found under agenda item H.1 using the link above.  The proposed agreement is as follows:

• By no sooner than 2023, BCS would get exclusive use of 16 of the 18.83 acres that comprise the Egan Junior High Campus.
• LASD would retain 2.83 acres of the Egan campus for affordable teacher housing.
• BCS would agree to cap its enrollment at 1,111 students, roughly equivalent to its projected enrollment for the 2019-20 school year.
• After the construction of a new junior high school facility on the 10th site, slotted to be finished no sooner than Fall 2023, the current Egan Junior High would be relocated to the new site. LASD expects to acquire the 10th site by the close of this school year. 
• While the new junior high is being constructed, BCS would stay at its current locations at Egan and Blach, with no expansion to Loyola or other LASD campuses.
• The proposed agreement would be in place for at least 10 years ending the divisive, costly and rigid Prop. 39 process.

Please keep in mind when looking at these deal points the following:

• Under Prop. 39, the highly disadvantageous to public school districts law governing facilities allocation for charters, BCS could be entitled to up to 20 acres. 
• In the Preliminary Facilities Offer under Prop. 39, the District was and is required to offer reasonable equivalent facilities to BCS based on their enrollment numbers.  As such, that offer included significantly more sharing at Egan and Blach (50% at Egan, 50% at Blach and 30% at Loyola).  This is significantly more sharing than they have now or will have under the proposed agreement.  Sharing not only means less resources for LASD kids, but also means more time spent by the administration and teachers making it work.  Having 10 schools on 10 campuses in the long term allows everyone to go back to focusing on what they do best: offering a great education.
• Without an enrollment cap BCS already grew over 200 in district students for the next school year, if they continue without an enrollment cap, they have promised to grow to at least 1,200 in the near term and to at least 1,800 in the longer term.  The only way  LASD can control BCS's enrollment growth is through a negotiated agreement.  
  
• Egan Junior High would be getting a brand new campus with brand new buildings, brand new fields, and a brand new gym.  The new Egan Junior High will, in fact, have better facilities than it currently does and BCS will be left with the old Egan facilities "as is."
  
• We will finally able to offer our wonderful teachers affordable housing. Many of our teachers live nowhere near Los Altos School District and have to go through hours of travel time a day to get to and from work.  As we all know intimately, the cost of housing in Los Altos and Silicon Valley have gotten out of control.  To ensure we can hire and retain great teachers, the ability to offer affordable teacher housing is a must.  

I look forward to hearing your comments, feedback and suggestions on Monday.  I am 100% listening to each and every comment I hear and reading every email I receive and making sure I consider all of them while determining what is best for the entire District.    

Next up on the agenda, the Board has to cast its vote for the CSBA Delegate Assembly Run-off Election.   The board must vote for 1 of 2 candidates.  This is an action item and more information about it can be found under agenda item H.2. 

Lastly, the board will have a first reading of a Board Policy Update regarding school safety.  This is a discussion item and the Safety Policy can be found under agenda item H.3.

Please note, this is just the highlights of what is on the agenda for the 4/8/2019 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.