LASD Board Trustee Doug Smith ponders…
On March 31 the LASD Board heard about 20 Bullis Charter School parents plead again for enough space to accommodate the expected 673 in-district enrollment at Egan and Blach. But the Board clung to its low-ball 605 enrollment projection and to its probably illegal method of calculating and allocating “shared facilities”at Blach. BCS spokespersons say the LASD Final Offer 2014-15 does not permit staff to house grades 5 to 8 simultaneously on Blach in 2014-15 even if they wanted to do so pedagogically. Grade rotation will be necessary next year again, causing unnecessary car trips.
But there were a few minor additions to the offer.
Egan
As was revealed during the March 24 discussion of the Final Offer, the LASD Board was willing to leave all portables on Egan, rather than remove three as threatened. But that still leaves 20 new kindergartners and about 10 new 4th graders without as much teaching space as is equivalent. The Board also agreed to allow BCS to use the track and field from 8am to 8:50 everyday. [Instructional 45 minute periods at Blach starts at 9 am].
Blach
Dedicated Portables – Zero Change. The board is still providing just 4 new portables (three 960s, one 1440). It’s not enough, but perhaps they will actually be more useful to BCS next year than the two exclusive use rooms in the Blach building –a Kitchen and Library Annex — were this past year. This year only grades 7 and 8 were allowed to use them, so they were unused much of the time. The kitchen was used about 6 – 12 weeks of the year when the middle schoolers had their 3 week project-oriented “intersessions.” And the library annex room was used as a specialized teaching space, an art room – but only for middle schoolers because younger grades were banned. These dedicated rooms were taken away for 2014-15. The replacement portables are more useful – there just aren’t enough of them. Specialized teaching spaces like for art are missing.
Land dedicated for exclusive use of BCS in 2014-15 is is outlined with yellow and blue. It amounts to about 1 1/2 acres. The blue land area is identified and estimated by Lalahpolitico based on LASD Board comments March 31. The location of the 4 new portables (red) is also best guess.
Choir – The board added another hour of unusable time in the music room to the shared facility schedule. Now BCS has the music room from 8:30 to 10:30am. But BCS spokespersons explained that choir is an extracurricular in their program and starts before instruction at 7:30 am and after instruction at around 3:30pm.
MPR- In response to the parents who spoke to the Board on March 24, mostly asking for a dedicated Multi Purpose Room (MPR) space, the Board instead upped the number of days that BCS could use the Blach MPR from 12 to 20 days. The board expects to include an exact schedule in the FO document but Logan said that the dates were just a “fallback.” She expected that the two administrators could work out something better. [Lalahpolitico: And almost certainly the two principals can work it out. Especially if the board – let me single out Doug Smith – can resist micro-managing, or should I say, micro-harassing everyone.]
Grades 5 and 6 PE – Until March 31, the offer did not contain any provision for shared PE space for 5th and 6th graders at Blach. During board discussion March 31, they added 1 hour of PE space from 9 to 10 am on Wed., Thurs., Fri.
Left to right, LASD Superintendent Baier, Trustees Mark Goines and Pablo Luther
Grades 5 and 6 Lunch & Recess – The board did not add any extra recreation space/time to the offer, but merely said that Grades 5 and 6 could join grades 7 and 8 in using what had already been allocated. Grades 5 and 6 were no longer banned.
Play Structure for grades 5 and 6 – The board agreed it would be ok for BCS to install a play structure at its expense next to Stepping Stone Pre-school. BCS could use up to 900 square feed of land on a dedicated, exclusive basis.
Dedicated 1/2 acre of Grass – The board made a very small concession to BCS parents who complained that the outdoor track and most of the fields at Blach go unused most of the school day. Neighborhood runners and dogs could use the space, but their kids were prohibited by the Facilities Use Agreement(FUA) from using the empty Blach fields. So for 2014-15, the grass in front of the track – probably about 1/2 acre right next to Covington Ave., will be theirs for exclusive use. [Lalahpolitico: Does that mean BCS can install more fence along Covington at their own expense? Right now the public can just saunter in.]
This half-acre is one of the “bread” crust strips that were dedicated to BCS in the 2011-12 Preliminary and Final Offer, but then taken away in the 2012-13 and in the 2013-14 offers. This year, the District has written language into the Offer such that any space that is unused for 30 days can be taken back!
Old 2013 -13 BCS footprint on Blach. See the “breadcrust’ around the track. Purple areas were NOT for use of BCS. The yellow rectangle was and still is the location for BCS portables to be installed behind the private preschool portables.
CEQA strictures – unchanged. The hard cap on the number of students who can be on a campus at one time still applies. BCS claims this prevents having grades 5-8 simultaneously on Blach, even if the principal wanted that grade configuration. The requirement to have 3 volunteers and 1 staff person whisk drop offs through the parking lot still applies. [Lalahpolitico: I guess the 4 lot attendants will stand there even when there is light traffic? What is really onerous is the “CEQA Monitoring Program.” It sounds like more paperwork harassment for BCS staff and more money for the CEQA consultant out of the school budget. And also there is less money for District union teachers who stood up March 31 to say they are 20% underpaid compared to Palo Altos school district.]
Science lab sharing – unchanged. Still a too short 45 minute times slot. BCS 7th and 8th graders are supposed to use the a Blach lab from 2:30 to 3:15 five days a week. That is a 45 minute slot. If it takes 10 minutes to set up and 10 minutes to tear down an experiment, that leaves 25 minutes to conduct the experiment. Labs are always scheduled for two back to back periods 1 or 2 times a week in order to create a 90 minute to 120 chunk of time. Remember your labs?
Lalahpolitico: WHAT SHOULD BE NEXT?
District should Add More Portables When BCS Proves it Has the Enrollees this Summer.
Lalahpolitico: One can hope that the Board follows through with its skimpy ‘side dish’ concessions to BCS – a play structure, a bit of grass. It’s all a bit vague. But what about beefing up the main meal – with enough classrooms, specialized teaching, and multipurpose room portables? This summer taxpayers should insist that the District reassess its dubious underprojection of BCS middleschoolers. Let BCS prove it has the new registrants in June. Then the district should adjust the building plan at Blach to accomodate our neighbors’ kids choice.
Resources:
When I can locate the final ‘Final Offer’ documents for 2014-15, I will post or link to them here. About 300 pages!
