Why is it that City Council members are expected to recuse themselves if they have a personal stake (owning property, etc.) in an area being affected by their decisions but School Board members do not? I'm looking at you, Coldonato.

If you think that every time a decision is made, the School Board members who have a child in the District should recuse themselves, then we are looking at the same Board members voting on EVERYTHING.

Frankly, I think the School Board members SHOULD have a child in OUR District. The ones that don't are frankly out of touch with our students, with our schools, with our teachers, with our families etc.

They do need to try to be very non-biased, but you cannot ask them not to vote on something like this. That is just not right.

Thank you for your ongoing excellent coverage of MVWSD issues, Kevin. I am grateful our community has someone like you in it.

I would like to clarify one position and one statement that were attributed to me in this article.

When direction related to the location for our popular Dual Immersion program came up, the question wasn't whether the board wanted to or intended to move DI, the question as I understood it (and maybe I misunderstood) was whether the board was willing to have the Boundary Advisory Task Force entertain alternative locations for DI than Castro. The board, and I individually, had received community proposals for alternate scenarios to consider, like moving DI to the Stevenson site, or moving DI to another site within the Castro neighborhood. I was open to considering such ideas, in case any of these ideas turned out to be better than the current plan for both Castro and DI at the same site, but I was the only board member who expressed interest in entertaining ideas like these, at this time.

When I quoted the $40 million number, I was not saying the the district has reserves of $40 million; it doesn't. I was estimating that the approximate amount of operating budget benefit the district has seen over the last ~15 years while Whisman was closed and the last ~10 years while Slater was closed, and both were rented out, is on the order of $40 million dollars, since we get approximately $900k in rent for leasing each of those sites, and the district says that running a school site costs $982k per school site. Multiply those numbers out, and you get a number in the high 40 millions -- then reduce it for inflation and you get down into the $30s or $40 million. I did not model this in a spreadsheet or anything, it was a back-of-the-agenda-packet estimate. I think it's fair to view our existing excess operating reserves of several million dollars as the unspent portion of that $30-40 million in increased lease revenue + savings from school site non-operation. And that if need be, some of those reserves could be appropriately allocated to reopening a neighborhood program at one of those two sites.

As an aside, if anyone wants to meet with me to discuss anything related to district business, or my own positions on district matters, please feel free to invite me to coffee at your local coffee shop by emailing me at gcoladonato@mvwsd.org. I am interested in meeting you, hearing from you, and discussing these important matters as adults. Conversely, if someone asks a question of me here in the comments anonymously or with a partial name, I am not very likely to address it. If someone asks a question of me using their full name and neighborhood, I am more likely to address it, but cannot promise that I will, since I have to occasionally leave the MV Voice website to do other things.

"Frankly, I think the School Board members SHOULD have a child in OUR District."

Wheeler no longer has kids in the district.
Colodonato sends his son to a charter middle school in Sunnyvale instead of Critenden.
Nelson's kids are in high school or college.
How about the others?

Something to think about: Either re-open Whisman Elementary or sell the property at the high value ( overinflated, IMNSHO ) it can get. OR, plan for the new growth across 101 near Shoreline and Moffett. If that is a wrong guess, you can still get mucho dinero for the improved land and buildings. In any case, do not keep renting out assets. Your main focus should be on giving residents and their children a proper education, and not playing Monopoly or Musical Chairs that involve people's egos.
I've graduated from the original MVHS and am still P.O.ed that we have an open space where the buildings used to be. Blowing away history carries it's own penalties. History does repeat itself. Smart people know this and plan for it.

"But moving choice programs around faces opposition from PACT parents, who made their wishes known during the meeting. "

That's odd. I thought that PACT was a choice program and not a neighborhood school, so it ought not matter where the PACT program is hosted. Move it every couple years, it should be fine. Oh, I guess the PACT parents are being disingenuous.

How shocking!

Moving DI would only make sense if the Castro site cannot reasonably hold the full population of Castro Traditional and DI combined and provide proper services. (Not having studied the ground-plans, I can't comment on that.)

Even in that case, it makes no sense to toss it over to the Whisman area.

For one thing, it would not be giving Whisman/Slater what they have been demanding, an exclusively neighborhood traditional school. One parent said they wanted this new traditional school to become the new center (or did he say heart?) of the community to bring that community together around. Putting any sort of "choice" school over there makes no sense.

For another thing (and I have been told this by several people who should know) the "center of gravity" for the people who want their kids in DI is closer to Castro school than it is to anywhere else.

For a third thing, there is a big problem whenever any sort of "choice" school is placed in any area without a very close-by neighborhood traditional school.

The problem is that if the "choice" school is the ONLY near-by K-5 school, then the majority of parents will simply choose that school based only on proximity to their homes, with no real interest in the special purpose of that "choice" school.

Putting any "choice" school anywhere alone destroys the whole concept of "choice" because it forces the choice on a neighborhood where most people don't want it.

For DI the problem is pretty obvious. If DI got put alone anywhere, then each year more and more kids in the DI school would have no real interest in the DI program and fewer people would be dedicated to the DI purpose. If, for example, the parents don't actively support/push their English-speaking kids to also learn in Spanish, then the DI will soon be pointless for that school.

Also, in the case of Whisman, it would put the DI program beyond the reach of many, perhaps most who need it the most. Perhaps also true of most other possible locations.

Same issues for putting PACT alone anywhere. PACT sitting alone, with no near-by traditional school, means that the majority of kids wont be there because their parents are dedicated to the PACT philosophy, but simply because of proximity to their homes. The danger to PACT as a program is probably worse because of the parental-involvement factor. It's one thing for a parent to be apathetic about their kids learning Spanish and just not pushing their kids to do well in that, it's a bigger problem if the majority of parents choose not to get involved with the PACT methods.

Putting any district-wide "choice" school anywhere alone is an effective way to starve it to death.

That is one reason why PACT does NOT benefit from the highly undesirable MVWSD suggestion to close Theuerkauf traditional school. Stevenson families want Theurkauf to stay right where it is, right alongside Stevenson PACT.

If it's true that there is no district-wide plan, I find it irresponsible for the district to be rushing through major decisions like re-drawing all school boundaries, and arguing over wether to open a 9th elementary school for which the district says it lacks the funds to run.

Is it really true that a school board member is confident in using his own "anecdotal headcount of the students" to justify his opinions that will effect the entire city is Mountain View?

As a resident, I'm dismayed over this rushed process of how to use public funds. It's wildly irresponsible.

@Jocelyn of Rex Manor wrote:

"Is it really true that a school board member is confident in using his own "anecdotal headcount of the students" to justify his opinions that will effect the entire city is Mountain View?"

Not quite Trustee Coladonato' point. He was expressing doubt about the accuracy of the existing demographic study numbers. By the numbers he should have only been able to find 4 kids in an area of 59 homes. He went and checked 7 homes and found 7 kids.

That suggests that the numbers that the district has been literally "counting on" may not be producing reliable results upon which to make decisions. I did not read his comments as suggesting his experiment was anything more than casting reasonable doubt on the existing calculations.

I can't fault Greg for wanting to find out if we need better numbers, I certainly want to know the verifiable facts and the accuracy of any calculations being used to make decisions.

"As a resident, I'm dismayed over this rushed process of how to use public funds. It's wildly irresponsible."

I'll second that one.

@Shocked of Whisman Station

"I thought that PACT was a choice program and not a neighborhood school,"

Actually, PACT is a "choice school", just as the Dual-Immersion "program" is about to become a school in it's own right.

The reason is that "choice programs or schools" operate so differently from traditional schools that they are not well managed by a traditional school administration.

PACT and DI both operate in ways that require their own dedicated administrations for them to reach their full potential.

"so it ought not matter where the PACT program is hosted"

3 points here:
First,
Generally any district-wide "choice" school (or program) serves the whole district best when it is placed in a centrally-located site, with good commute access where it can be reached by the entire district as evenly as possible. The DI program (soon to be school) is only best at Castro if the major center of the population who want DI are located in that area and thus that serves the district best.

Second,
As the article alludes to, allowing any "choice" school or program to be put anywhere without a close-by neighboring traditional school destroys the whole point of "choice" by forcing near-by parents into a choice school they don't want.

Like putting PACT at Whisman would be bad both for PACT and for Whisman because Whisman wants a traditional school and PACT needs a traditional neighboring school.

Third,
Putting PACT in the corner of the district means that it becomes a big problem for the majority of the district to get there.

I am incredibly frustrated that the school district does not seem to look at or learn from its own history. I was a Slater parent. The school district closed Slater despite the parents analysis showing that there would be increased enrollment. PACT was moved despite protests that Castro would get too big. There was increased enrollment and Castro got too big and thus a new school was open with PACT on that campus. Should they have moved PACT at the time to Whisman campus, solving two problems at once? Maybe. Should they never had closed Slater, well yes. These mistakes can't be undone but the same mistakes of closing yet another school can be avoided. Leave PACT and every other school alone and make a decision based on open, true numbers to open up a school in the Whisman area or not but quit moving kids around. My kid has been through two school closures and it is very stressful on the kids.

Priority One is to ensure that every child in the district has access to a quality neighborhood school.

Priority Two is to provide "Choice" programs to parents who feel their students cannot learn how to read, rite or rithimitic the way everybody else can.

As long as Priority One is achieved, I personally have no problem with keeping the optional lower priorities going. I think we need to spends some time thinking about it and trying to come up with a solution. However if there really is no reasonable way to keep our top priority fulfilled, then cuts must be made.

This needs to get resolved this year, so let's take some time, but not too long.

Do we yet have consensus on how to define "Neighborhoods"? How are we going to measure quality? The last time there was a neighborhood school north of Central and East of Rte 85, most neighborhood parents chose a different school for their children. Repeating history would be re-opening such a school without a plan by the district AND a commitment by the community that enough children will attend to assure a quality school. Since all current students get grandfathered into their present schools, we have to start the school by insisting that new students attend the neighborhood school. Without test results, how do we assure those parents their children will be attending a quality school. How long do we "assure" it for, another ten years until the next bubble bursts?

I am extremely confused. From the data I have seen, it would be fiscally irresponsible to have 9 schools. There are the increased operating cost. These operating cost also affect the quality of the education we can provide to each site. As Mr. Chiang has said, those funds will be diverted from technology, teacher pay, intervention program. Is the cost of opening one school worth the risk of lowering education benefit of all students?

I also don't understand the rationale behind comments about taxpayers have been paying money, but they don't benefit because they don't have their own school. This is not true. Parents like Julie Muir , who has two students at Castro, and and Greg Coladonato, who has/ three students in PACT do see their tax money being used.

Why are neighborhood schools priority #1?

I agree that we should have safe walkable/bikable routes to school (I bike to work daily.) But the quality of education should be priority #1. I would like someone to show me data that neighborhood schools are better than other schools. While testing/API data is important, I also welcome data like overall sense of community and happiness as well. It seems to me that community CAN be built even if you aren't in the same neighborhood. It seems like Dual immersion and PACT two non-neighborhood programs are doing well on tests and in building strong communities.

@Old Steve of Rex Manor wrote:

"...The last time there was a neighborhood school north of Central and East of Rte 85, most neighborhood parents chose a different school for their children..."

I have been assuming that the Whisman/Slater parents (who have been pushing so hard to close some other school to bring it to Whisman/Slater) have already done the leg-work on this and KNOW that enough parents will indeed choose the new school and not continue to choose some other school. Am I assuming too much?

I have heard it mentioned in meetings that their community is "divided" into 3 or so sub-groups and that they want a new neighborhood traditional school to become the glue to unite the divided community.

Sounds right, but now I wonder if it's wishful thinking or if they have really gotten serious consensus from the divided community on this?

"Repeating history would be re-opening such a school without a plan by the district AND a commitment by the community that enough children will attend to assure a quality school."

If they got a totally new school, I would assume they would have a voice in selecting teachers and administration. The quality results would depend on parental engagement in the process of launching a new school and in their kids continuing education.

"Since all current students get grandfathered into their present schools, we have to start the school by insisting that new students attend the neighborhood school."

I happen to know 2 families personally and 3 others through them from the Whisman/Slater area who now go to Theuerkauf who are determined to remain at Theuerkauf regardless of the new school right nearby their homes. I'm sure they are a minority, but it does make you wonder how the bulk of the parents really feel about all this.

I wish the MVWSD had done a real opinion poll, with properly phrased questions, to find out the real intentions of the parents of each community which will be effected by these plans to close/open schools.

@Priorities of Whisman Station,

"Priority One is to ensure that every child in the district has access to a quality neighborhood school."

"quality" should be the priority.

I suggest you look at the map of the district as a whole. And the dot-map which shows where all the kids live. Many people live way too far from the closest school to walk or even ride a bike. Certainly the majority of K-5 kids cannot walk to any existing school site the MVWSD owns now.

The location of our schools is historical and haphazard. We can't fix that.

Walking schools are nice, but quality education is more important. Choice schools help in the quality priority at least as much or more than school location.

I moved to a different school each summer of my childhood, so I've seen a lot of schools and lots of living distances to school. I was rarely able to walk to school when I was a kid. 2 schools I rode a bus for over an hour to get to school. I did all my homework on the bus.

Look at it this way, even if you don't accept that the PACT philosophy itself provides a better result for some types of kids than traditional schools would, consider this.

It is widely accepted that the number one variable which determines student performance is the level of engagement of the parents in the education of their kids. If the ONLY thing PACT does is to inspire parents to get so totally engaged in their kids education that their kids perform better, then that alone is a valuable result.

I and other PACT parents would be all too happy to see Whisman get a brand new school they could design themselves and keep for their own neighborhood and turn into the core of their united community, but let's not destroy another existing community to do it.

Let's get the politicians and their staff to figure out how to accomplish this.

@D of another community

"...PACT was moved despite protests that Castro would get too big. There was increased enrollment and Castro got too big and thus a new school was open with PACT on that campus. Should they have moved PACT at the time to Whisman campus, solving two problems at once?"

Learning from history is great idea, let's look at the critical point about PACT movement.

PACT started out within a traditional school. Got closed.

PACT then moved into another traditional school. Got crowded out.

PACT then moved right next door to a traditional school and then became a school in it's own right.

That's what allows a "choice" school to operate effectively, the close proximity to a traditional school.

Moving PACT or DI farther than a block or two from a traditional school would destroy the whole concept of "choice" and force the locals into making a choice they don't really want. It also is a disaster for any choice school to be alone because too many parents will only choose to be there because it's close, NOT because they support the choice philosophy of it.

People that think schools should be sold are short term thinkers. Any way you cut it, Mountain View is going to grow and over grow all school capacity in all areas.
It is almost impossible to get a piece of property big enough for a school. All of our schools are to large,and too crowded, simply because it is cheaper to administrate that way, and leave more money for admin salaries, not because it is better for the students.

If people are short sighted enough to sell a school, at least make it the next hardest public purpose to find space for, a park.

"Its all about me and my generation" thinking like "the_punnisher" asks for, is why Mountain View is so unbalanced, especially in terms of schools and parks. There will always be money for building high density housing, and office space. Both are big business, backed with big bucks. Schools and parks are for the little guys, without big bucks.

@Kalyani Thank you! As a BATF committee member, I agree with your input regarding getting the data out to those who know how to analyze it. Please continue this point and make it a point that you submit in writing.

I'd also encourage everyone to ask that this process not be made in any type of rush. We are just starting to get the input from the public about schools that we need. We are just getting to enough time and expertise analyzing the data we have been given to make any kind of sense with it.

It would be much more comfortable trusting the data we have been given if the people who did the data had much less opinion on the process. I find it very peculiar that they keep having input, and the majority of it until the public was involved, and that their input was for a specific decision, not just to inform committee members about numbers.

Our original responsibilities were defined on the school district website as:
"On October 9, 2014, the District’s Board of Trustees were presented with a demographic study on the current and projected enrollment of the District. The study highlighted a significant disparity in the enrollment growth of the District’s middle school campuses. On November 20, 2014, the Board approved the establishment of two schools at Castro Elementary School effective for 2015-16 school year. In addition, the Board has been considering whether to open an elementary school campus in the Whisman/Slater neighborhood. These issues impact enrollment and facilities across the District and necessitate a review and possible realignment of the attendance boundaries for both the elementary and middle schools.

The BATF responsibilities include the following: (1) representing the community as a whole in the process of reviewing the demographic study and the impact of enrollment growth, (2) reviewing the impact of growing enrollment at the two Castro Schools and (3) reviewing the impact of opening an elementary school campus in the Whisman/Slater neighborhood. The BATF will make recommendations on specific boundary related issues and inform the public about the recommendations."

They were changed several times since and that process is unclear on how they were changed.

I'd like to ask that we be sure to include the middle school campuses in our discussions, based on our original responsibilities. I sent a message to the committee as such and I do see that it has been added onto the agenda items for tonight's, Tuesday, March 24th, agenda.

Please join us. I'd appreciate your concerns be submitted in writing, if not to the committee, at least to me personally at the meeting tonight. We'll be in the Theuerkauf Elementary School multi use room starting at 6:30.

Address: 1625 San Luis Ave, Mountain View, CA 94043

@Deniece Smith of Shoreline West

"@Kalyani Thank you! As a BATF committee member, I agree with your input regarding getting the data out to those who know how to analyze it."

Speaking of useful data the public should have...
There is a dot-map I have seen showing the location of all the kids in the district.

The data I would love to see is a series of dot-maps which are specific to the kids enrolled in each school. I think this would be very helpful for people to understand how the district works now and what the effect would be of moving or closing any schools.

For Stevenson, it might also be informative to see a separate dot-map for the 170 kids currently on the waiting-list for PACT.

These maps would also inform the Whisman/Slater community about how many kids would come flowing into their neighborhood if either "choice" school got moved there and which intersections would become choke-points in the commute as a result.

Interesting about PACT being a program and not a school. I remember clearly when PACT received its Alternative School status, which was huge! And with the phenomenal success of PACT I would hope that it would be duplicated not shut down!!!

My kids are not old enough to go to public school, but I have been to the open houses of different schools two years in a row. I saw things with my own eyes. The following is my finding:

The demand for PACT has been very high. If Theuerkauf is closed and make room for PACT, PACT enrollment most likely will fill up the school and still have wait list. Check the wait list for the school. Talk to people in the meeting to verify yourself!

Anyone jump to conclusion based on data provided by the board is making a mistake.

God help the BATF, an impressive group of intelligent and thoughtful citizens. The board provided "direction" to the committee in the form of: please discuss and contemplate and come back to us with your recommendations but let it be known that we are considering only one particular recommendation.

What is the task force to do? Should it let the board know that opening a 9th school without closing a school will involve cuts to other programs and cause other schools to atrophy according the available data. Or would all that discussion just be a waste of time because the board already took it's unofficial vote (they only need three votes and those three board members aren't interested in changing their minds).

I like what one BATF member said tonight, we should really be calling ourselves
the How to Open Whisman Committee. Might as well call it like it is.

If that is the committee the board wants then it should form it properly and give it the data it needs including an actual polling of the neighborhood residents to find out how many people would send their first born kindergarten age child there. Truly how much would it cost to occupy Whisman or Slater, construction-wise and operationally. Should it be done in phases?

Yes, a school in the North East of the city should open ... when the decision is 100% right. That may not be this year, it may not be the next. It might even be five years from now. But better to get it right than to rush ahead and get it wrong.

In the meantime, let BATF get back to addressing the urgent boundary issues that can be understood and solved based on the accepted data available at the moment.

Most parents do not apply to the PACT program/school. Most parents have their kids in neighborhood schools.
So, obviously the majority preference is for neighborhood schools.

Not everybody in the school district has a school in their neighborhood, so the board is trying to resolve that. If the PACT program can be saved, then great. However, if it is a choice between having neighborhood schools for all or closing/moving/consolidating/whatever PACT, then there is really only one decision.

This wreaks of the shenanigans over in LASD, where some very wealthy parents did not want their kids mixing with somewhat less wealthy kids in other neighborhoods, so they created a publicly funded private school for themselves. Sure, there are differences...but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then....

Why not get rid of all the special programs and go back to the 3 r's. It was good enough for people like Steve Jobs.

Opening a new site does not have to be as costly. You don't have to have a principal if you start with one or two kindergarten classes and and the next grade each year like private schools sometimes start.

Just heard another administrator resigned? ??

The "3 Rs" have not been successful for most students that we are educating for most of the time we've had k-12 system.

Operating cost include more than just a principal. You will need to supply the energy to run an ENTIRE school for 50-100 kids. Similarly maintenance/custodial staff are needed. You will need to hire a part time librarian, a speech therapist, RSP support, school nurse, food services. ELD needs to provided for ELL's and if there is not a high enough number, special teachers need to be provided. "Extra" programs like CSMA/ PE need to be supplied as well. Having such a small beginning population creates a situation where you may need to have combination classes.

While one COULD operate with a principal, asks Stevenson how well that went over when they only had a part time principal. Someone has to take care of the administrative tasks, teachers are already pulled thin as is.



To reiterate what was said earlier. Opening another school without closing another school will cause cuts to all programs. We DO NOT have the funds to support 9 schools. Why are neighborhood schools the focus and not quality schools?

Given currently public opinion, parents and prospective parents tend to think that Bubb and Huff are the quality schools, while Theuerkauf, Castro, and Monta Loma are the "lesser" schools. Why not focus on strategies for how to make those schools better. People want to close PACT or DI, but those programs/schools are working well.(Yes, they have flaws) but rather than closing those programs down, from an educational standpoint, it would make the most sense to learn from these programs.

Focusing on opening a school in Whisman because they "deserve" it seems bizarre. The board needs to make a tough decision. Operating 8 schools is the fiscally responsible thing to do. If we need to close a program, they need to deal with the ramifications/politics of closing a school, but financially we can't do 9 schools.

@Educator
Nothing to say about Landels? That would be the closest school that the Whisman neighborhood actually has, distance wise, but I'm pretty sure you live no where near this neighborhood as you did not even mention it. Deserve, is not bizarre. The neighborhood which sends all of its children to all the other schools, which makes them look like their neighborhood has enough children to keep their school open, and the neighborhood which pays tax dollars as well, and the neighborhood which gave up TWO schools to gain income for the rest of the district, does deserve a neighborhood school. We had 8 schools when Slater was open, and when it was closed we were told we could not support 8 schools. Mistakes were made and eventually they need to be fixed.

@neighborhood,

I did not mention Landels because it doesn't seem to have an exceptional GOOD or BAD reputation in our district like the ones I mentioned. (FWIW, I think all the schools have excellent unique qualities, but these public opinion's about what makes a good school is what is driving parent's to flock towards Huff and Bubb.

Do the parents of Elementary school age children in the Whisman area have schools that their students attend in the MVWSD? If so, their tax dollars are being used by them and they get benefit of the disctrict educational system.

The best argument for a neighborhood school is the safe routes for walking and biking. There is no educational research that suggests that attending a "neighborhood" school is necessarily better than "non neighborhood" school.

Whether we open a school in Whisman or not isn't really even my main point. I think the board needs to make a fiscally responsible decision. Maintaining 9 sites with our current budget isn't feasible. That's part of why the BAFT had so many scenarios requiring a closing of a school. With the current guidance, then its as easy as rezoning kids using the current boundaries. Someone, somewhere has to lose. That is--unless we can start thinking more creatively or out of the box.

Closing Whisman and Slater were not mistakes at the time. They were the best decisions made with the information available. You imply that as demographics change around the district, schools should be opened and closed as needed. What is the return period on these decisions? Two years, five years, ten years? What will enrollment be when the next bubble bursts? In a perfect world we could re-open Whisman, expand Stevenson for the PACT waiting list, and find a site for the Whisman tenants. The world is not perfect. Opening Whisman and expanding Stevenson mean bond projects at the other schools get squeezed, what should we eliminate? This is exactly how the second floor at Crittenden got "Value Engineered" last time. Funding Operations at a new Whisman school comes out of funds we could otherwise use to improve teacher compensation. Should we have last September every September?

Thank you all for posting many more (what I consider) well reasoned and nuanced comments and thoughts 'this time around' the cycle. I have studied the district operations fairly deeply the last 3 1/2 years (2 prior Demographic Reports / 2010 US Census, > 1000 pages of SFIP details). And, the Budgets, including Reserves and Bond tax receipts.
This is a major Public Policy discussion. Thanks for your care.
This is a cycle in the Countinuous Improvement Process (Strategic Goal #6). One of several cycles. I'm very sorry that this "cycle process" did not start in March of 2012 (before the facilities Bond approval vote of Bd.) I am very sorry that there was never a Bd. vote on SFIP priorities (17 "Guiding Principals").
I've entered the elected politician ranks - because I objected to that 'no priorities' process - and found my voice, along with others, ignored. I prefer an open democratic process (even if staff is having a hard time with that, and "their" groups) to the closed-meeting system of the past. [ ]
Thanks again.
SN is one of those elected MVWSD Trustees

March 8, 2013 MV Voice
"The meeting signaled a change from what was once a board that usually asked only a few, simple clarifying questions of administration and contractors during meetings. Since the election of the three new members in November, it has turned into a board that pushes back with regularity." [ Web Link ]

I have said this before, and I will say it again. Don't say that therakauf is not as good school as Bubb or Huff. Just because it has a lower API doesn't mean it's not a great school! because majority of children are ESL. My daughter goes to TK there and I have seen that principal, teachers, staff, policies, approaches to teaching and discipline are all excellent. I have not met one student or parent I haven't liked. They all care about their school and take learning very seriously. So please stop saying Therekauf is not as good as Bubb and it needs to be brought up to Bubbs level. For all you know Therkauf is better than Bubb. Could Bubb teachers teach children who can't speak English math and science as well? You don't know. And the children who aren't ESL are taught excellently with high quality. You can't judge a school solely by API scores. An ESL student might have lower scores at Bubb if the teachers don't know how to teach that particular type of child.

@Educator
I don't think you should state that Therkauf is a lesser school, even if you are saying that is parents opinion. It is rude. I am a parent of a child at Therkauf and I don't think there is one parent of a child at Therekauf that believes our school is lesser. I am very proud of our school and teachers! And just FYI - I am English only speaking, have a graduate degree, and work in the science field. I believe my child is getting an excellent education there. Have you ever been to Therekauf, seen anything there first-hand? Just because the API is lower, does not mean the school is not good. It means the children are at a lower level of learning, probably because they are still learning English. If they were taught and tested in their native language they would probably score higher. But their parents want them to learn English so they can live and be productive citizens here. Also, you ahve to realize a lot of the parents don't speak any English and therefore can't help them with their home work as well, and they may have only a fourth grade education so can't help much.

Very well said Sally.

@ Sally,

I understand your concern. My only point is that parents are deciding to send their kids to certain schools based on what they "think." I feel that all the schools have numerous strengths and weaknesses. There are excellent teachers at each of the current sites. Conversely, there are teachers with significant areas of growth at each site. We should be focusing on increasing teacher knowledge and teacher skill at each site.

Much of the perception of what constitutes a quality school comes from API (doesn't currently exist), and we know that that generally has to do more with mother's level of education and wealth than "quality" of school. I haven't encountered many parents who have been upset with their current neighborhood school.

With that being said, we must do more in ALL of our schools to address our Low SES, ELLs, SPed population. The percentages of students not prepared in 8th grade is abysmal.