The facilitator got the group to define and agree to its own ground rules
After spending 50 minutes of agreeing to mutually respectful rules of engagement, the 13 member task force was treated to a data deluge. Business Manager Randy Kenyon took over an hour to talk the group through a 70 page demographer’s report.
If you want to take a look at the full 70 pages, Taskforce_12_18_12_Packet. Other wise check out some of the highlights of the evening, we thought you might find interesting.
The taskforce breaks into small groups to create ideas
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Treasure Map
This map includes locations of former LASD schools from the 60s and 70s – Remember Eastbrook, Carmel, Portola?
This colorful map of the current district attendance areas includes locations of now defunct LASD schools. Eastbrook in the hills still has buildings, is a fraction of its original acreage and is leased to a Waldorf school with an option to purchase for $1 after 30 years. Carmel School near Oak is half its acreage and is occupied by the parochial “Miramonte School. ” Portola School across from Egan was sold and completely developed as housing. The oldest school – San Antonio – located next to the present day Los Altos Library library, was not occupied since 1959 when it was deemed an earthquake hazard. It was later torn down, and the lot was sold to a realtor for offices.
In a future task force meeting there will be a presentation of an exhaustive list of potential sites for building, leasing, etc. for a 1oth or 11th site. Of course “grade reconfiguration, ” two stories, and other space miserly solutions for existing sites will also be considered.
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Map of the Confusing North of El Camino Area
Did you know that a small part of Palo Alto across El Camino is in LASD?
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The Demographer’s Method
As in past years, the demographer combines BCS and LASD students when analyzing community demographic patterns. She initially forecasts enrollments of residents regardless of whether the students will attend BCS or regular LASD schools. Then she makes a separate, independent forecast of future BCS enrollments. Next the charter students are subtracted from the total forecast, leaving a forecast of students who will be enrolled in LASD schools
Opinions about likely future BCS enrollments vary, but her primary forecast combining BCS and LASD students can be used regardless of what is believed about BCS enrollments. The model can vary the assumptions about BCS enrollments.
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Table A – Medium High forecast please
Here are the forecasts. The upper forecast is for the whole LASD public school Community. The bottom is for LASD enrollment only.
Table A shows the official forecast. The demographer endorses the medium forecast. But the school district asked for a “medium high” forecast this year. Why? There are State revenue risks from forecasting too low, but not for too high.
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Table B – Our MV kids can fill their own school
- North of El Camino Enrollment – Mountain View only ( not PA)
As Mr. Kenyon observed about Table B, There are enough students here in 2011-12 — 565 — to fill their own school! (Ignore those grand total rows for the columns. Unless you want to compute an average, not shown)
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Table C – New housing units to bring 135 more
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Table D – Newer housing brings 166
Exisiting newer housing contributes 166
Table D shows that existing multi-family developments continue to contribute significant numbers of students.
[hr]Chart A – “Grade Progression”
This chart illustrates what demographers mean by “grade progression”
Do 100% of students move to the next grade at their school? Sometimes they move away. Sometimes newcomers arrive. Grade progression as illustrated in Chart A is how the demographer forecasts all grades except Kindergarten.
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Chart B –
Example actual grade progression of the 2003 Cohort
The kindergarten class of 2003, had kids move in every year till 6th grade
In Chart B, the size of the 2003 cohort can be seen in each year till it went to high school. Children transferred IN until the 5th to 6th grade transition. The dips in those grades may be caused by parents trying out private middle schools.
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Chart C – K/B ratio … the Move-in Factor
After 2003, the Los Altos K/B ratio rose beyond its 90% to 110% band to over 135%
Demograhers looks a births from 5 years earlier to predict the size of a current entering kindergarten cohort. For example, 100 births in 2010 would mean 100 kindergartners in 2015 years later. But in communities like ours, parents move into the community with toddlers in tow. That means, demographers need to predict the kindergartner-to-birth ratio.
As can be see in Chart C, historically in Los Altos the K/B ratio was close to 100% until 2003. Then it rose to around 1.35, which is considered very high.
The difference between K/B ratios before and after 2003 maybe a result of the publication of test scores. High scores might result in both more families moving to LASD and perhaps fewer choosing private schools. As we show later the share of students in private schools apparently has declined substantially since 2000. Why the K/B ratio has continued to climb, however, is puzzling, and there is no indication whether it will fall stabilize, or perhaps continue to increase. p.34
Since 2000 the availability, accessibility, and publicizing of district individual school test scores have increased considerably. .. Availability of test scores has no doubt increased awareness of the districts desirability… Clearly families with young children have moved into L ASD recently and have sent their children to public, rather than private schools. p. 41
If you are curious about K/B ratios around the Bay Area and in other states, check out our post. Also read about it in “School Districts People Flock to – and Flee From.“
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Table E – High Public School Test Scores
Shrink Private School Enrollments
Census data vs. small sample estimate for 2005-9. Private school enrollment likely declined
The demographer theorizes that the share of private school enrollment did fall in our Los Altos area. She cautions that most of the data in Table E is census data from a large sample so is probably accurate, whereas the 17% cell estimate is from a different source, a much smaller sample and is subject to a large margin of error.
Lalahpolitico can remind the reader the the City of Los Altos Hills has an education committee that does a survey every 10 years. I recall that the survey found that 40% of City of LAH residents went to private school 10 years ago. The lastest survey found that 30% attend private school now. I would agree that the share of kids in our area attending private school is down. I think Table E overstates the magnitude of the decline of share of private school in our community.
The decline in the share of student in private school over the last 10 years is Statewide phenomenon. The LASD demographer blames the publication of public school test scores beginning in 2000. That seems plausible.
[info]The demographer believes that …at least 10 to 20 percent of BCS students would have attended private schools if the charter did not exist. p. 43. Lalahpolitico has read that … nationally is is estimated that 80% of charter school students would attend their regular public schools if their charter became unavailable. So our LASD demographer’s estimate aligns with that national finding.[/info]On page 44, is a chart of enrollment in private schools LOCATED in and very near Los Altos and Los Altos Hills which we don’t reproduce here. The schools covered are Waldorf, Pinewood, St. Nicholas, Canterbury, Miramonte, Los Altos Christian, St. Williams, St. Simon. Most of them have not expanded much as a group over the years with a couple of exceptions.
The fact is probably half of LASD area parents who send a child to private school are sending him or her to Palo Alto, Menlo Park….San Jose…somewhere beyond the Los Altos area. So this data is interesting but really doesn’t shed any light.
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Out of District Students
LASD’s Bullis Gardner the Champ
Since LASD became a basic aid district recently, extra students don’t bring extra revenue so they are limited to 1) children of employees of LASD and MV-LA High Schools 2) PAUSD kids living in Los Altos Schools who are helping to keep Bullis-Gardner enrollment high enough.
As for Bullis Charter, under Prop 39 LASD only has to provide facilities for in-district students. Accordingly, BCS has stopped admitting them long ago, and they are limited to only the current 7th and 8th graders. When these kids progress out, BCS will be virtually 99% in-district.
The demographer’s report has only 2011 actuals, while 2012 actuals are available elsewhere. But the conclusions are the same. LASD’s Gardner has the largest number (35) and largest share (over 10%) of out-of-district. students. Twenty-nine of those 35 were PAUSC kids living in Los Altos Hills p. 59. In comparison one can see in Table F, that BCS had (12) students or about (2.5%) out-of-district students.
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Table F
Bullis Gardner – has 10% out-of-district enrollment
The BCS charter allows the school of apply a preference for the Bullis Purrissima attendance area
The BCS charter has an admission formula for enrollment preference for the old Bullis-Purrisma attendance area applicants. Than can be seen in the red box of Table F — 32% of charter students are kids from the Gardner Bullis attendance area. Otherwise, the charter draws from LASD areas in a fairly unsurprising pattern. BCS is located at Egan. Hence nearby families apply more than far away families. So Almond and Santa Rita families seem to apply the most, whereas Oak families are applying the least. There is of course an interaction between the number of applications and the lottery randomness.
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Demographer’s Error Factor over the Years
According to one task force member, there is “talk in the school parking lot” to the effect that the School District was a victim of bad demographer’s reports. Paraphrasing… “How could the district know they needed more facilities with such bad forecasts!”
This task member seemed a bit astonished to find out the forecasts really haven’t been that bad. Especially if you look at 5 years vs. 10 years.
Let’s just look a a couple data points.Let’s look at trying to predict 2011. The demographer’s 2002 “medium” forecast predicted 2011 at 4,290 students, while actuals were 4,910…for a delta short fall of 620 students. Yow. A whole school’s worth short. But the “high” end of that forecast – not shown – was probably closer.
The deltas were fairly pronounced till 2006. That “medium” forecast made in 2006 for 2011 was for 4,781 students, while the actual in 2011 was 4,910…for a delta shortfall of 129 students. That’s just 4 or 5 classrooms. The “high” forecast – not shown – was probably closes
And it’s not in the table on pg. 66… but one would think that LASD board of trustees would have learned years ago to look at the “high” instead of the “medium” and put more credence on that. In fact, this year they finally asked the demographer create a new additional “medium-high” forecast.
Lalahpolitico has only been covering school district news for 6 months… but it is clear from my stumbling through the press record of Los Altos Town Crier and Patch.com, that since at least 2009, the trustees could have/ should have known they were short a couple of schools. Not just one. [yeah, this can be dealt with by grade reconfiguration, etc. too. Lalahpolitico is not presupposing any particular plan.]
[info]The district asked the demographer to compute the delta between her forecasts and the actuals starting with 1997 to the present. You can find the table on pg. 66 of the report. (Be sure to grab a ruler! Lots of numbers, no grid)[/info]
If you want to take a look at the full 70 page Demographer’s Report… Taskforce_12_18_12_Packet.
