Coladonato just wants to live up his campaign promises of opening a new school in the Slater/Whisman area no matter the cost to the district and the students. The district already can't afford to run another school and that is with the income from the lease at Slater. Now Coladonato wants to kick Google out and lose that income. Where would the money come from to run that new school that he so badly wants? Does he think the district has a money tree in its backyard?

If I recall correctly, the facilities committee that the Board convened also recommended against opening this new school, also because of lack of funds.

I can't believe the Board was convinced to spend money and time drawing up plans for a school that we cannot afford and do not need. And which their own committees clearly stated were not advisable or feasible right now.

Greg Coladonato, give it up already! The value of your condo near Slater will still appreciate even without a school there.

The lease extension for Google is already too long. A school site should only be leased while it is not needed - not just to raise money for employee salaries and benefits.

I don't know why Board members are calling whether we can open Slater an "open question."

If we can't afford it, especially considering that it sounds like we don't even have enough money to renovate the schools we already have, the question seems pretty closed to me.

So how about moving on to something more important, like our *glaring achievement gap* and substandard test scores?

It sounds like a terrible spot for a school. The roads are already so congested there and it's not bike-friendly at all. I haven't been following this debate but I don't get why he's trying to shoehorn a school into that tiny spot.

What's most interesting from the daycare/preschool lease is that apparently and contrary to common belief... Googlers have kids. City planners and developers should keep this in mind before proposing ever more kids-unfriendly projects with only studios or 1 bedrooms (or micro-units).

What will happen to the children with Special Needs and autism program already at Slater?
Nobody talks about them like they just can be moved anywhere.

@cocerened citizen
Unfortunately most parents comments will only pertain to the welfare of the PACT.

@Googlers Have Kids

Hahaha! That's a hilarious tag. But yes, they do have kids and my husband and I are retired and help them afford childcare, in Mountain View, by watching their kids at the very minimum fee the law will allow. We'd watch their little angels for way less - if we could. We want little families to get ahead here. I don't care about ritzy school districts bragging about how high test scores are for google employees. We care about the toddlers and their families.

@Resident

Why do you have to bring up PACT? No one else did! Stevenson has nothing to do with this plan, this is a school for the Slater neighborhood.


@Concerned Citizen

I had the same question at the board meeting but public questions are not allowed so I couldn't ask that. I wonder if they are in some of the existing structures that will be left alone but I don't really know.

The best solution is to lease Stevenson Elementary to Google on a high priced and longer term lease. Then, re-open Slater.

Very simple solution and fair to all.

What was Mr. Coladonato thinking?

Mr. Coladonato was thinking that we should explore every option on the way to deciding whether or not we can open a new school. That we built the school site primarily to host a school, not to generate lease revenue. It's nice that we have that option but the community that elected at least two of the 5 board members did so on the hopes that we would eventually re-open a school in the Whisman-Slater neighborhood. It's just that simple.

The BATF and the Facilities Committee both recommended against opening a school in our current climate. As I understand it, that recommendation is based on the district's fiscal interest in maintaining a certain number of students at each school. However, with the hiring of a new Superintendent and a new CFO, the district hasn't had time to investigate the impact of smaller classroom sizes, sharing resources between schools and other issues, which would be the result of opening a new school. If some of the parameters can change, it may, in fact, be possible to open a school without negatively impacting the other district schools. Then again, it may not be fiscally sound policy to change those parameters after all, and opening a ninth school at this time could problematic in the long run.

But, we should, in the interest of the community, ask these questions and find those answers.

Just don't make a 30 year lease to Google. That is way way too long to say the district won't need the school during that time. That land is worth $80 million today. It will be worth way more than that in the future. A $1.6 million lease may sound like a lot, but it's just not much money. Google is going to be hard pressed to find any other 6.6 acre site for their childcare. If the district wanted too, it could lease 3 or 4 acres to many other such uses, and keep 5 acres for its own needs. The lease income need not be that much different in the case of a different tenant for just 3 acres of the land...

"The district already can't afford to run another school and that is with the income from the lease at Slater." Sorry, but that is 'cow pie politics'. As well as the comment that "the committee that the Board convened." When commentaries do not have a good handle on the realities of operations of government institutions - elected official do not tend to listen to those commentors. (or their 'likes' #)
Residents like Cfrink, that know their stuff from experience in other governments, and deeply study the issues, and (for me) take personal responsibility for their comments, are the comments I pay attention to when I consider how to vote.

but that is just my personal opinion,
MVWSD Trustee Nelson

To Solution
I get your humor.9

One of the main issues with your representation on this board is that you always bring everything back to politics. If you were truly in it for the students, that would be what you come back to - the students - not the fact that you are a politician. And, I can assure you that I do have a good handle on the financial situation of the district because I have done my homework (notice I am not calling it a government institution as you always do because the district is more to me than a governmental institution. It is an organization that educates students and has dedicated staff members who work there ). I choose not to list my name because you have personally threatened me in the past and I don't care to have a repeat of that situation.

Nelson shows again, above, that he operates in an echo chamber where only those that agree with him and his crony Caldonato have "worthy" opinions.

Honestly, I wouldn't trust this board to manage construction of a new sandbox.

Greg Coladonato ran for a board seat and clearly stated that he wants to see a school in his neighborhood, this was no secret, and he was elected. Why call him a crony? Democracy is always great when your guy wins, but if you disagree with the guy who wins, he must be corrupt, right?

It can't hurt to investigate a possibility.

Mr. Coladonato would certainly not be the first elected to have benefit of more information after being elected than while campaigning. I'm sure he has found the work of the Facilities Committee and the Boundary Advisory Task Force to be instructive. Now that the German School lease has been extended, now that the Legislature has gotten use to LCFF; IF we can pass a parcel tax, AND IF Mr. Coladonato and Mr. Nelson can convince Huff parents who would be reassigned to a New Slater, to accept the change, we might be able to afford to start a K-3 school. Depending on whether or not we can actually build 18 classrooms without impacting the other site users, we could then consider a 4-6 STEM magnet program for the rest of the campus. I might rather see a neighborhood school grow, and pilot a magnet STEM program at Theuerkauf which is already doing some good STEM work and which is more central location for district wide parents interested in a magnet program. But those are BIG IF's!!

@Old Steve

LOVE the idea of a STEM magnet program at Theuerkauf! THAT is far more likely to bring people back to that school than other ideas I've heard. You cannot force people to attend, they have to want to attend.

Only downside I can see is having 2 magnet programs close to each other could at some point make parking and traffic a real problem. Maybe giving the immediate surrounding neighborhood priority to one would help solve that.

Unfortunately, I doubt the district will do this, at least not before my kids start school and I could make use of a STEM Theuerkauf. They seem to support more of the same.

@Abagail
It has everything to do with pact.
Having to re/open or rebuild Slater has everything to do with pact.
Just because no one is saying it here doesn't mean It's so,because you say so.
Slater was a perfectly wonderful school shared by everyone that lived in the community. It wasn't tell pact came along and caused such a mess that everything came crashing down. Starting with pact parents and the district. Now look at the mess. Kids scattered no neighborhood school.

I found the first two comments in this thread and the votes they received to be very upsetting. I have faith that the posters weren't just acting selfishly and only looking out for their own kids at their own neighborhood school, but just that they were unaware of some facts. Here are the facts:

* Due to the Whisman lease to GISSV, there is enough money in the Operational Income to run a new school without affecting the other 8 schools.
* Whisman-Slater has the highest growth rate of preschool and kindergarten aged kids, as well as the fastest growing population in Mountain View.
* Whisman-Slater has over 600 school age kids who all go to various schools around town, causing traffic for everyone.
* Whisman-Slater has the 2nd highest population of SED kids in the city, after Castro. It's especially challenging for these families to shuttle their kids around to other schools.
* BATF DID recommend against opening a school because of the demographic report, which showed that enrollment in the city was dropping.
* Wait, didn't I just say that Whisman-Slater school age kids population was going up? How can enrollment be going down? I'll tell you why: more kids are being priced out of Castro and the area than are being added at Whisman-Slater. So where are we opening a brand new $43M school? Castro. This is the reason there isn't enough left of the $198M bond to open a school at Whisman-Slater, where the growth is.

I think Greg Colodonato is all too aware that there is a money tree in the district's backyard. They are the Whisman and Slater schools which are leased out to private companies which fund operations at the other schools in the other neighborhoods in Mountain View.

Google. Google. Google. Some of my neighbors work there. Nice sweet families...lovely children. I'm just very tired of my city planning so much around one company that's promised so much and whose employees hate us cuz Google being here has raised rents.

Magnet/charter ... different school organizations. The fellow that was hired as the new Superintendent has direct experience in just these type of school organizations! Ask Chris Chiang if that was one of the reasons this guy was chosen. That was some of the community feedback we got on our survey prior to the 'new superintendent' search. I hope we did a good job in this aspect of our board's hire.

these are only my opinions,
Trustee Nelson

PS The Jan 2014 Report showing the justification for new Developer Fees does not show decreased enrollment. In fact, with the generation rates per unit, it shows steadily increasing enrollment, following the trend of steadily increasing unit development.

Maybe the folks in Whisman Slater should have spent their time on a Charter Petitiion. The district would have to provide facilities comparable to what kids in the district have. Instead they spent time electing first Nelson and now Coladonato. So all of us get delays in Measure G projects, continuous wrangling during board meetings, and $230K for an employment settlement.

Yippee and Thanks to all

Old Steve: a Charter Petition has been discussed, but the neighborhood would rather work with the School Board as much as possible before going that route. Charter schools (such as Bullis) have a great reputation for the kids who can get in, but they can be disruptive to the rest of the district. I have a feeling that you would be complaining a lot more had the Whisman Slater residents succeeded in starting a charter school.

Whisman Slater residents have just as much a right to vote as the rest of the citizens, so if you don't like how the elections turned out, you should spend more time organizing yourself instead of just posting here. Let's try to keep it positive, OK?

Mr. Bell, no taste for sarcasm eh? I've campaigned for candidates in every election in Mountain View since 1994. Bullis is not a good example of a charter. I have made the point before that parents have to commit to sending kids to a charter as part of the petition. What better way to convince the district that the kids are really there. Let's just say that electing Nelson as a way to work toward a neighborhood school has clearly come with collateral of the sorts I mentioned. To push your idea to extreme, every time housing demographics change in the district we should run around closing and opening schools, even though evidence shows most parents drive kids to school at least a large number of school days, regardless of how close the school is. This behavior to some reduces the import of a "neighborhood school", as we would need almost 20 schools for every neighborhood to have one within walking distance.

FWIW, I am opposed to new any parcel taxes being proposed by the school board. I do not feel like they are representing my interests, and if I end up having to send my kids to private school, or moving, what is the point?

I'd love to have a good neighborhood school in the Whisman/Slater area, but time is critical. My older son starts kindergarten in 2017, and if the board is this wishy-washy and uncommitted, I have serious doubts they can and/or want to get things done that fast.

A shared site squeezed next to Google is not my idea of a quality neighborhood school. I am also very disappointed by comments from the Superintendent that Google "would consider moving out". Google is leasing land from the district, not the other way around. The board should be serving the interests of the students and the district, not Google.

Steven Nelson: thanks for this correction:

"Jan 2014 Report showing the justification for new Developer Fees does not show decreased enrollment. In fact, with the generation rates per unit, it shows steadily increasing enrollment, following the trend of steadily increasing unit development."

Absolutely true, it was the PROJECTIONS of the demographic report which showed a decreasing enrollment. These projections had us scratching our heads as we drove by multiple residential construction projects on the way to drop our kids off for school in other neighborhoods. Anyone who lives in Whisman Slater knows that the population is going up, and would guess that it will keep going up.

Old Steve: I do love me some sarcasm, but I guess just not when it's aimed at something as emotionally charged as this. There is a lot of vitriol on these boards, so I'm hoping to try to moderate it somewhat (which is part of the reason I post under my real name).

I'm not sure why you are pushing the idea of following demographics to the extreme. To push the situation in WS to the extreme, we should close all of the schools and lease them all out. That would put the school board in the best possible financial situation. That's not what you're saying, right? Just like I'm not saying we should run around opening and closing schools every time there is a demographic report.

Marcell: I believe you share that opinion with a great many households in Whisman Slater. Another fact: WS families pay 20% more parcel tax for schools than the rest of the city, due to the history of the old Whisman school district. So our neighborhood is paying more in taxes with no neighborhood schools. I'm sure this will factor in to any decision on a parcel tax.

I think all the parents who believe in project-based learning but don't "win" a spot at Stevenson should start a charter petition. There's 80 or so kinders on the waitlist this year. I think a charter only needs 70 or so kids enrolled in order to open, so I bet we could get enough kids just with kinder and first grade to open.

I was really hoping the district would do something to match the demand on their own and in the good faith of wanting to supply the type of education that parents believe in to all who select it (not just to those who win it), but if they are unwilling to do so on their own then maybe they need some convincing.

Mr. Bell, I'm glad you have never been threatened for your community involvement. I have, and I want to remain OLD. Correction, I believe your property taxes are higher for old bonds. The old districts never had Parcel Taxes.

Good we agree, we need to seek the best value education on behalf of all students enrolled in the district. We can re open New Slater quicker if all the W/S parents who currently send their kids to Huff would commit in writing to help open the new school. That can be done through a charter petition.

The best solution is to lease Stevenson Elementary to Google on a high priced and longer term lease. Then, re-open Slater.

Very simple solution and fair to all.

I'm very disappointed that the board keeps ignoring the North Whisman area needs for a school. Where is the equality that every neibourhood has a local school and none for the growing Whisman community. Our kids don't know the neibourhood kids coz all the kids are split between going to different schools.

I'm very disappointed with the board and now I understand why schools in Palo Alto, lost altos, Cupertino have a higher rating coz they don't corner people instead they are working with the community to give all kids a better future. Why don't they take a chance to open a school that they can be proud off. I think board members agenda is not to give good future to the kids.
It was sad to see when board member Coladonato asked for counter argument none of the other board members said anything and instead just went ahead and passed a 2 years lease at Google. It's ok to have different opinions but if you don't even comment and just move forward with your agenda that shows how much the board really care about other parents and kids!!

Why would Google be interested in leasing Stevenson which is a small portion of a larger shared site (with Theuerkauf, district offices, and city park partly on city owned land)? The Stevenson portion dedicated just to that school would be less than half of the space they have at Slater. They have over 6 acres with a dedicated drop off area all to themselves.

If Google would pay the same for just 3 acres of Slater, that would make room for a regular school there. They want more land than than the 2 acres of buildings used by Stevenson.

"Very simple solution and fair to all."

By that same reasoning we can just keep things the way they are now. Also fair for "all".