Google has done MAJOR modifications to Slater School to make it accomodate all preschool children-it is unlikely that it will become a public elementary school again. Whisman is up for lease consideration in 2011. It should be taken back by the district.
I can't accept this explanation that the district had NO IDEA population would grow this quickly. Closing Slater was a horrible, costly decision that was mostly motivated by Google offering LOTS of money. We have to keep Google happy. Even the city council had no interest in preserving a much needed neighborhood school. Not if it meant upsetting the giant. If Google is reading, where is your "do no evil" in this situation?

For those of us who fought so hard to keep Slater School open, this is not a surprise. We had thick packets of data that projected that what is happening now was actually going to take place. The then-superintendent and her cronies, along with the entire School Board, got us into this mess, and led us down this road. PACT moved from Slater to Castro, and now a proposal is to have PACT move again is on the table. The Board was short-sighted and made a bad decision in 2006; are they now more competent to make decisions concerning the students, their families and their transportation needs? The legacy of the ill-thought closure of Slater has affected many, many people; I hope that the Board, in considering spending 2 million dollars, is really thinking this through better than they did the Slater-closure issue.

In response to Parent (in Castro neighborhood):
I went to alot of the board meetings at the time of the closure, with worry that they would close my school. I stayed in the loop as much as possible.
I don't disagree with your first paragraph. However, I must say, that the Google deal (offering LOTS of money) was not on the table when the district decided to close Slater.
It seems to me that Elenor Yick was working on closing Slater for quite a while. There were many things being done before the announcement of a closure which leads me to this idea.

But, I am told that Slater had a few potential people looking at the site AFTER the closure was announced, and Google was only one of them.

After the closure of Slater the next year brought overcrowding to every elementary school. There are many Children being bussed away from their neighborhood schools due to overcrowding. The Whisman School should be taken back to relieve overcrowding and so that neighborhood can have a school nearby. This is costly, and unfortunately the school board made poor decisions in the past, but the Students deserve better conditions, and shouldn't have to suffer based on poor decisions by adults in power.

Well then Jen, you were fooled. Of course they didn't announce or admit the Google deal but all they saw were dollar signs. The district has had a relationship with Google and had already been renting Google space at other school sites before Slater was closed. You don't think there were any discussions behind those doors?

MV Voice, March 3rd 2006

The answer to Slater Elementary School's fate once it closes in June may be short and sweet: Google.


The company hopes to use the site for its child care and preschool needs. The Mountain View-Whisman School Board met on March 2, after the Voice went to press, to discuss a possible joint use agreement with Google. The board will then hold a follow-up meeting March 9 to vote on the agreement.


A draft of the five-year agreement was provided prior to the Thursday meeting. It indicates an average yearly rent of $690,000, allowing Google to use two-thirds of Slater's 45,000 square feet for employee child care and a preschool. The district had hoped for $500,000 of income from a Slater lease, if it came to that, so the Google proposal will more than meet those expectations.


Google currently uses part of Theuerkauf School for child care and preschool programs, with a long waiting list of employees wanting to enroll, according to Rebecca Wright, the district's chief financial officer. She called the joint use agreement plan a "win-win."


If the board and Google decide to move ahead with this plan, the elementary school district would continue to be able to use Slater for its own state-funded preschool under the joint use agreement. The plan also allows community members to continue to use the school's playing fields, addressing neighborhood concerns about being deprived of open space if Slater were leased to a private school.


"It's a dream in a lot of ways," said board vice-president Fiona Walter.

That about sums it up-thanks QM!

Except that the article was AFTER the decision was already made to close a school.

The District always anticipated to rent out the space; however, when Google came through, they ended up getting way more money than they had in their "budget" for this rental space.

The decision to close a school had been on the table for a long time starting with the School Closure Task Force back in 2005, long before the article was written. I think 'parent" was trying to make the point that MVWSD may have made a poor decision because they had dollar signs in their eyes. It now seems that it would have actually been cheaper and wiser to have kept Slater School and all schools open. Thank goodness we have that nifty construction fund-once we build this new school we can close it and rent it out too!!

Easy solution. Require proof of ciizenship before enrollment. Overcrowding will be eliminated, budget shortages will be controlled. Students will again be challenged to perform. Test scores will go up. Gang problems in the schools will be minimized. No, it is not politically correct, but it is true.

Kenneth, your proposal, I believe, would only solve a small percentage of the problem, because most of these children are citizens because their parents illegally entered the United States and had them delivered for "free" in U.S. hospitals. Free to the undocumented parents that is, but not free to the tax payers and private hospital owners. Many hospitals in close proximity to the border have gone out of business because of all the anchor babies delivered without reimbursement.

By the way, they are not talking about actually "building a new school" (although that is the way the Voice made it sound). They are removing the YMCA from a building and putting PACT there. The building is part of Stevenson school (another school closed by Mt View - a long time ago). The District uses the rest of that school as their offices. The building-fund money comes in when they have to renovate the building to bring it up to code.

(I do wonder why a building does not have to be up to code when there are kids in it already?)

So where are all those people who say that illegal immigration doesn't cost us anything?