Bullis Charter School – LASD Long-term Meeting 2 – Surprise Draft Agreement

At the Sept.16  long term facilities meeting, LASD trustees Doug Smith and Tamara Logan surprised the BCS trustees and the public in the audience by ending the meeting by handing out a rough draft of a combined FUA amendment / transitional agreement / and long-term agreement.  There was no discussion as the meeting was effectively over.

 Facts, or just the Fact there are Feelings…

At the beginning of the meeting, Moderator Gary Waldeck, Los Altos Hill City Council had suggested both sides should see if they could agree on some facts.  Tamara Logan wanted to discuss the fact that some people in the community have certain feelings about Bullis Charter School.  Mr. Waldeck rephrased that as people have perceptions about BCS, whether or not those are about true circumstances or untrue circumstances.  It was agreed that both sides could list some feelings. BCS said it was a fact that many of its parents felt that it did not have equitable facilities.

 

LASD Official Apology for Closing Bullis-Purissima

Before diving into an inventory of LASD parent and community feelings, Tamara Logan officially apologized for closing Bullis-Purissima School. “ It was a mistake.” BCS’s Francis LaPoll seemed a bit amazed and said he, the board and the BCS community really don’t think about the closing anymore at all.

 

LASD’s one-hour Inquisition – by the Numbers?

Smith and Tamara spent the next hour describing how some people believe BCS should be exactly like Los Altos School District in terms of its geographic attendance demographics, percentage of English Language Learners (ELL), low-income students, and especially its special ed students.  BCS’s Francis LaPoll claimed that 1) BCS was about the same as several comparable LASD schools in those percentages, 2) that BCS made elaborate recruitment attempts to get diverse applications, 3) that selection is by a random lottery, 4) and that BCS gets better achievement results among the its special populations than LASD does.  To the audience it felt like there was bickering and disagreement about the “numbers.”  A member of the public later commented about his amazement that the four trustees and moderator “couldn’t just pull up the numbers live from a laptop and settle what number was what.“

 

Smith and Logan said that BCS outreach for diverse applications and random lotteries were not good enough. “Don’t try, do.”  In other words they want BCS to mirror LASD average demographics, period. BCS claimed that what charter law requires is non-discrimination; the charter authorizer compares a charter’s demographics to the population of its district, not to the demographics of the enrollment of its district. Smith and Tamara’s request was based on “the fact of feelings in the community,” not charter law. Their argument was BCS will need to mirror Los Altos School District average demographics nearly exactly, to soothe the feelings/perceptions of certain people and thereby get a school bond passed.

Smith and Logan’s argument was BCS will need to mirror LASD average demographics nearly exactly, to soothe the feelings/perceptions of certain people and thereby get a school bond passed.

[Lalahpolitico: BCS is 12% of district enrollment today. You can find my evaluation of the demographics at www.losaltospolitico.com – see Schools Data menu item. It’s from a year ago. BCS seems about the same as Gardner, Oak, Loyola and Montclaire over the years.  The schools bounce around, and you wonder if categories and classification practices change over time. Basically, Lalah thinks LASD activists are elitist hypocrites. Do compare Los Altos School District with Mountain View Whisman on these demographic profile percentages and then make your moral judgments. ]

 Manufactured Feelings = Fear-mongering says BCS

Francis LaPoll claimed that LASD and activist parents have been manufacturing the “feelings in the community” for over 10 years.  Their first “fear-mongering” effort was telling the community that funding the charter school would take away money from each of the children in district-run schools. “False.” “The money belongs to each tax-payer.” He suggested that the way to pass the bond was to stop the negative messaging abetted by activity parents. “Call off your dogs. Call off your dogs.”

The Surprise Draft Proposal:

It was a surprise that LASD’s Logan and Smith had prepared one and also make copes for the entire audience. It was handed out last thing at the meeting so no one was reading it or discussing it there. It was obviously pre-meditated and recapitulated all the points they made during the meeting.  Think of it as homework for BCS, Gary Waldeck, the moderator and Geoff Ball, the facilitator.

 

Lalahpolitico:  Here is my reading of the key provisions

 

1)   It grants all  of BCS’s Facilities Use Agreement change requests at Blach – no k-3 restriction, use of Blach facilities by 4-8, ok to install play structure.

2)   It demands that BCS pay for all CEQA costs for the bump in max enrollments at Blach and Egan. The gotcha is that Los Altos School District will be totally in charge of the consultant and lawyers for the CEQA. [sic In contrast, BCS wants the district to quickly make a CEQA  Statement of Overriding Considerations and be done with it, not to run up large open ended bills.]

3)   BCS is to buy the insurance for any mishaps due to k-3 being on Blach. [ sic BCS offered to do this over a month ago]

4)   BCS is to skip the Prop 39 2014-2015 process which begins this coming February and accept the current facilities for 2014-2015 [sic This would be a no growth promise for next year. If BCS had just received the facilities for the 250 kids it requested at Blach for this year, over at Egan, the LASD kids, parents and neighbors would have been a lot happier this year.  BCS should be allocated that in 2014-2015, plus their expected growth for the current cohort strands. Los Altos School District–Penny wise, Pound foolish.]

5)   “Complete walk away” from all litigation by both sides [sic That would be nice. But this provision is more drastic that just halting litigation as was done for the April 2013 ill-fated agreement.]

6)   The District promises “efforts” to locate a single, continuous site for BCS and to have BCS help pick it.  It will make “site certainty assurances.” But right now BCS would pass a resolution “within one week of this agreement” to A) work to pass a bond and B) fund $5-7 million of the cost itself. BCS will promise to occupy its site for no less than 15 years, and it will not pursue Prop 39 claims for 15 years.

7)   The Charter should change its charter within 60 days to a) drop geographic enrollment preference for the old Bullis-Purissima area, b) add preferences for English Language Learners, the economically disadvantaged, foster youth and special ed students [sic All charter schools and district-run schools make these reports to the county and state.]

 

Lalahpolitico: Woof. Woof. Grrrrrr.

But hey, the draft is a start. The biggest problem I see is that it does not provide for a long enough transitional period facilities plan after a bond passes – it only talks about one year 2014-15.  The chintzy offer of changing nothing about the current facilities for next year is a non-starter. A transitional plan should be more like 3 to 5 years.  Also there needs to be a discussion of the What if…Worst Case Scenario… of a bond not passing after 2 or 3 tries.  What then guys?

One speaker from the public probably got the “What if”  right. If a bond just does not pass, spread BCS on multiple sites across the district.  This has been proposed by multiple people, at multiple times, across various school sites.  No repetition needed here.

BCS is valuable community asset, not traffic pollution.  Many modern parents want choice. We have no magnet schools, and BCS fills this niche nicely.

TRANSCRIPT?  maybe over the weekend. And sorry, I did not yet find the .pdf of the draft agreement online.