BCS totally rocks, recently received highest standardized test scores of any school in the state! That's awesome. Why do they need extra cash? What is there beyond perfect?

I don't know about perfect, but they certainly deserve our parcel tax dollars. While LASD dithers around and continues to cut programs BCS keeps doing some fantastic stuff. Have you ever heard their choirs? Beyond awesome!

I mention this because last night the LASD musiccommunity flash mobbed the School Board Meeting. They were not on the agenda, but over 30 students, former students, parents and teachers showed up to speak on behalf of the music program. Apparently LASD is considering cutting the program even more! They already cut back in 2011 and now they are thinking of cutting it again. So wrong!

BCS is not cutting music, its going strong, every student takes music in grades k-8 and there are countless music electives. Plus they have art, drama and dance. They really support the arts and have a great STEM program, except theirs is a STEAM program because it includes the Arts!

@Tom, it's not a matter of BCS trying to get beyond perfect. As the article states, the consideration is whether as a taxpaying community we want equitable support for all students living within the Los Altos School District attendance area. All property owners in the area are paying taxes in support of all the public school programs in the attendance area. All the public schools are providing an education for all the students living in the attendance area.

The inequity arises when you consider two things:
1. Nothing from any of the parcel taxes collected by LASD are used to support BCS programs
2. LASD is a basic aid district (aka "excess taxes" district), and so BCS only receives the "revenue limit" funding per student

Consider that students served by BCS are just under 14% of the students living within the district (one in seven). They get no benefit from any parcel taxes. That feels inequitable. Also consider that for the year just passed, the revenue limit funding level received by BCS was about $7,000 per student ( Web Link ). LASD received from our property tax and parcel tax payments over $10,000. That also feels inequitable.

Finally, consider the idea that for each student that lives in the district that chooses BCS, this current arrangement INCREASES the funding available for the students who choose the district run schools.

Lets take it to its logical extreme just to make the point very clearly. Suppose all but ten of the in-district students chooses next fall to attend BCS. LASD would transfer about $7,000 for each of those 5,300 students. That's just over $37 million.

However, those ten remaining district-educated students would have about $1.4 million PER STUDENT dedicated to their year of education, as the district receives over $52 million every year to educate our children.

Let's take it the other way. Suppose all 741 current BCS students decide to enroll in district managed schools in the fall instead of BCS. Now we spread that $52 million among all 5,210 students for just under $10,000 per student, a decrease of more than 10% from this year's funding level. Add to that the crowding that would come from increasing each school's population by 15%, and suddenly the district isn't doing as well with its high-quality, small-local-school promises.

As much as BCS has been vilified over the last decade for stealing resources from LASD students, they've actually been a boon to solving both budget and facility issues for all those students. This is because they've been consistently underserved and treated inequitably by the district. Despite this neglect, as you point out, the students have achieved at the very top levels within California.

I think it would be a disgrace to discriminate against charter school children.

Does the charter school admit ANY and EVERY child in the community? I am informed that they don't, which is itself discrimination. Until they do so, I will now vote "NO" for any of MY tax dollars that could go to Bullis -- because to do anything else is unfair to our community.

Does the charter school admit ANY and EVERY child in the community? I am informed that they don't, which is itself discrimination. Until they do so, I will now vote "NO" for any of MY tax dollars that could go to Bullis -- because to do anything else is unfair to our community.

"Does the charter school admit ANY and EVERY child in the community?"

Of course not! If we did that, then our test scores would match the public schools.

Mr. Fagan, some 'new fangled school finance terminology' for you. "State Funded" and" Community Funded." These are the terms for the new(ish) K-12 public school system (LCFF, Local Control Funding Formula). How that translates to the older terms:

"State Funded" means that the State provides make-up money when the local property taxes are insufficient.
"Community Funded" means the LCFF state appropriated money is less than what the local property tax raises.

"State Funded" pupils get less money than "Community Funded" students (on ADA, Average Daily Attendance)
Basic Aid was the old term for "Community Funded". That phrase is no longer generally used by the State DOE.

Mr. Fagan - thanks for the excellent link to a very authoritative data source (EdData). The funds we are both writing about are in the category of "LCFF revenue." The extra money "Other Local Revenues" in LASD are mainly that extra general property tax money (based on AV, Assessed Valuation) and the LASD Parcel Taxes. I do not think that LASD has a lot of leasing revenue (like my MVWSD).

Mr. Nelson is a member of the MVWSD Board

I don't see anything amiss with Mr. Fagan's calculations and 'two preposterous straw men' examples. (10 remnant LASD students, 100% of LASD students remain). His last paragraph, of course, goes into What is Good Public Policy, and is not in particular connected to his calculations!

@Rob Fagen

If you want to eliminate any perceived inequities, I would ask that you petition your school board to change their charter to be controlled under LASD. As it is now, BCS is charted by the county school board. If LASD were to share any parcel tax to BCS then BCS should be held accountable for how they use that resource. There is no valid reason today why BCS should remain chartered by the County. If BCS wants to be a part of the community then they need to take that essential step.

An interesting thing about the data on Ed-Data is that it lags by at least a year
at all times. Property tax revenues in our area really went up by a lot last year
which affects the funding for 2015-2016 currently in progress. In LASD it was up
by 9.5% for this year. The figure for next year is determined as of 1 Jan 2016 but
not all the data is in yet. However, a big factor is the number of sales transaction
which have kept on increasing. LASD is forecasting 8% increase for next year, but
it seems more likely to be 10.5% to 11%. The city of Mountain View is forecasting 12%
overall. There have also been many sales in Los Altos.

There was also a one time $2.5 Million payment to LASD for 2015-2016 which will become $950K one-time for 2016-2017.

Those per student numbers linked to by Rob Fagen say $11,400 per student, but that was
for 2014-2015. It looks like 2015-2016 will be $12,500 per student at least.
For 2016-2017, it appears that it will be $13,500 per student or more, in LASD.

The Charter school discrimination denying it equal funding has been helped by
increases in the state formula (LCFF), but it has not kept up with the EXTREME
growth in LASD revenues from local property taxes. Combine that with the parcel tax
and the charter school kids are really being discriminated against. You could make a case that LASD should give each child in the charter additional funding of $4,000 or more.

So, sharing a parcel tax of $2.1 Million across all 5400 kids in the district seems to be quite reasonable and a good deal for LASD. Without the sharing, the 2nd Parcel Tax
gives their already well-funded kids $450. Spreading the money acoss those in BCS
drops the funding for each kid to $380. It's not a big deal as a hit to LASD's revenue. They really are being discriminatory not to just put that out to start with.

Discrimination? What a ridiculous use of that word. The wealthiest parents in LASD want a private school on the public dime, yet call it "discrimination" that they can't get their hands on every last cent.

Shame!

Let's reserve the term "discrimination" for situations where African-Americans are denied housing, women who are paid less than men, and all the other practices that denigrate a population based on race, gender or religion.

"Does the charter school admit ANY and EVERY child in the community?"

It admits every child who wishes to attend, and for whom LASD gives it space. Unfortunately, the LASD will not give BCS the facility space for every child who wishes to attend. To do that would require repurposing at least two and possibly three campuses, without causing overcrowding at any of the remaining campuses. Not having enough space forces a lottery for admission and a wait list at BCS.

It's sad that little Washington State has beaten California to the punch with regards to how charter schools are robbing from the public school system:

"Washington state’s Supreme Court has become the first in the nation to decide that taxpayer-funded charter schools are unconstitutional, reasoning that charters are not truly public schools because they aren’t governed by elected boards and therefore not accountable to voters."

Web Link

California needs to follow Washington's lead and stop these privately run schools from robbing both tax revenues and expensive school property from the public schools.

The LASD is highly populated with very economically comfortable families. Only 5% are very low income. This is literally the household staff that makes up 60% of that number. Only a few areas have residences with genuine residents who are of low income.

That's why it's such a joke that someone points some finger at the charter school. It's no different than 7 out of 9 schools in LASD. The charter does have low income families, even though LASD has put up all sorts of roadblocks to the charter recruiting them. The county board has suggested that BCS recruit low income students from outside the district so that they can see how their program works with a few percentage points of low income, using low income families that don't have the option otherwise of attending a public LASD school. Interesting idea.

"Wealth is irrelevant", says the Wealthy.

The county had to force BCS to recruit people of color and lower income families. They spent most of their effort recruiting the affluent! They also had to be forced to phase out the "preference area", which gave priority enrollment to the the wealthiest areas of LA.

Thanks to the board of supervisors and "the judge" for stopping their nonsense (for the moment).

Gag. "Economically comfortable families". Shameful, elitist terminology.

This is a pretty simple equation folks. For Measure E to pass, LASD needs to give some of the parcel tax proceeds proportionately to BCS. If not, BCS will vote as a block against Measure E and then everyone loses.

You can debate all you want but this is just good old fashioned politics. LASD has always put the screws on BCS. Time for BCS to grow a backbone and turn the tables. Some times the minority actually ends up with a veto block and that's what's going to happen here if LASD doesn't play ball.

Hey LASD - be grateful that you got away for years not giving them a cut of the parcel tax. Call it a day, cut them into those proceeds, and find a long term location for them so the whole community can live in peace. People are tired of this. Don't let BCS be your Vietnam.

Even more simple: BCS change their charter to be under LASD. Why should we give our parcel tax dollars to BCS for educational purposes when it will be managed by a county board of Ed with little to none oversight. If BCS really is a part of our community and claim to be beneficial to LASD then the first step is to have oversight under LASD.

BCS is a charter for LASD already. It is NOT as some trustees of LASD have said a county charter. It's attendance preference areas are the same as LASD. It serves LASD students. You can even say it serves LASD students only, since the few out of district students involved are less than LASD itself has at its schools. (LASD has around 100 out of district students who are allowed to attend even though they don't live within the district. Also, there are no checks resulting in a goodly number of non resident students
in the LASD schools).

So DavidR is wrong. There is no need to change anything. The BCS services are available to all the students in LASD. The trustees of LASD have imposed a cap of 100 students per grade level, and BCS is not allowed to expand beyond that number by more than 5% at any one grade level. This is further evidence that BCS is an LASD school, or else why would the LASD trustees muck around with limiting it?

BCS has always been recruiting for diversity in students and teachers. All the county board of education have done is tu suggest ways that BCS might legally include students from out of district in order to expand the number of low income students attending LASD schools, by serving more at BCS. That would most likely be a number like 15 or so students recruited from out of the district to increase diversity. It's not big deal one way or the other, but it's a good idea.

BCS is chartered under the Santa Clara County School board, which is poorly staffed and in charge of more schools they can handle spread throughout the county.

Rather than recently going back to the county to extend 5 more years under their charter, why didn't they move to LASD? Oversight under LASD is a must if they are going to use LASD tax revenue. They can't have it both ways: Share LASD derived finances yet be held accountable to a County board.

All charter schools are state schools, the same as the traditional schools. A school district is a "special district" of the state, not a city or a county.

In the case of a charter school, there is an appeal process, since the presumption is that charters must be approved if they meet defined criteria. LASD erroneously said that BCS was lacking. The county board overturned that decision on appeal, but the charter is still a district charter. The county board only approved it on appeal. When the county did so, it offered to pass the school back to the district if it would then approve the charter, but LASD declined.

So there you have it. Now BCS is engaged in a lot of activities that offer input gained on their program to other districts in the county. BCS is even talking about opening a 2nd school outside of LASD. That school would be a new charter. But one organization is allowed to run 2 different charters. It's not likely that the clock will be turned
back to a time when BCS would be overseen by the LASD board.

BCS calls themselves a public school; however, with the exception of the public funds they use, they act and govern themselves like a private school. BCS does not have the same percentages of English Language Learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged children, or special needs kids as the district in which it resides. BCS has a self-appointed, in-perpetuity school board that rules with no community input and no elections. BCS receives tax dollars from the district; however, they do not have to abide by the same accountability and transparency rules that are required by law for public schools.

BCS heavily pushes on the parents to donate $5,000.00 per student per year. They once even used a “wall of shame” to display the names of those families that did not donate. BCS maintains a geographic preference for families living in adjacent Los Altos Hills, one of the wealthiest enclaves in California, where the original neighborhood school resided.

Early pollsters are saying that this will be the flashpoint for renewing the parcel tax later this year. If LASD can't get the every growing BCS population to support it, say goodbye to your $2.5M/yr. Giving BCS some of the $2.5M is still better than getting $0. Hopefully, LASD trustees learned math when they were in public schools. And maybe the Teacher's Union can whip out their handy calculators to see that a smaller piece of a pie is still better than no pie. If LASD's leaders have the high test scores we think they do, then they should be able to make the right call.

Sorry I'm late back to the discussion. Answers to some specific questions:

@Volunteer: I think you've gotten some very biased information. BCS allows anyone in California to apply to attend. All the applicants are grouped by where they live and current relationship to BCS (siblings of current BCS students within LASD, then residents in the former Gardner-Bullis attendance area, then residents within LASD boundaries, then siblings of students outside LASD and then everyone else). Full details are here: Web Link Also, note that the G-B preference area is being phased out by 2019. Then, each group is admitted until the rosters are full (with the maximum total student population as negotiated between BCS and LASD). If there aren't enough spots to cover a group, then a random drawing determines the waiting list. BCS has many hundreds of applications for the hundred kindergarten spots. To serve all of them would be extremely challenging for BCS from a staffing perspective. More importantly, it would be incredibly difficult for LASD to provide adequate facilities based on their past performance. Underperforming on either the staffing or facilities would be a grave disservice to those students and the broader community.

@Steven Nelson: thank you for the update in the terms of art. "Community Funded" and "State Funded" make much more sense!

@DavidR: I think that @DavidT and @FactsStraight answered the question about why BCS's charter isn't being directly managed by LASD. @FactsStraight also makes a good point that the scope of influence of BCS has grown beyond the boundaries of LASD, which is good for all education in Santa Clara County. I think that LASD has also provided some leadership to other schools in the county in sharing their successful programs, too, but the specifics don't come to mind. Either way, LASD rejected the idea of overseeing the charter, so I think that train has left the station. As a matter of fact, they rejected the idea at least twice. After the county approved, they had 40 days to accept sponsorship of the charter (as reported by Web Link )

As far as constitutionality, wealth inequality and some of the other issues raised, they are relevant concerns regarding future action. However, I would like the conversation to focus on three simple questions:
1. what are the current elementary education opportunities being supported by our tax dollars?
2. how many tax dollars are we dedicating to education?
3. are each of the students being served being provided with an equitable share of those tax dollars?

As a community, we can decide to collaborate or compete. If we compete as we have in the past, by definition the total resources dedicated to education will be less than if we collaborate. Time and energy that could be harnessed in moving the cause of education forward will be diverted to drawing lines in the sand.

If we accept that the greatest benefit to the community comes from collaboration and cooperation, then we have to accept as a community that some will need to accept changes from what they're used to. To maximize the total benefit to the entire community, those who have been marginalized need to be included at the same level as the rest of the district. Otherwise we'll continue to waste effort on arguing about it instead of fixing it.

An excellent summary of the situation:

"There are two types of curricula available to students within LASD: the one offered by the traditional schools, and the one offered by BCS. Currently every student in the district has equal opportunity to partake in the LASD curriculum. While there are some differences among the seven elementary schools in the district, they are minor. LASD prides itself on the consistency of curriculum and performance across all of its schools. (Compare this to districts such as Cupertino where schools like Nimitz and De Vargas perform significantly worse than their peers.) Every student in LASD is guaranteed a spot at one of the traditional schools if he/she wants it. Equal opportunity for all.
However with the BCS curriculum, students do not have equal opportunity to partake. Half of the slots are currently reserved for kids who happen to reside in one small section of the district (one old attendance area, which covers roughly 15% of the students). Incidentally, this area is the wealthiest part of the district. So 15% of the students are allotted 50% of the BCS slots, while the remaining 85%—which includes the vast majority of special needs, ELLs, low SES, and academically low achieving students—vie for the remainder of the slots.
Zhiqi Zuo—concerned parent and statistics savant—analyzed the data from the most recent BCS enrollment lottery, and here is what he posted to the LASD Voices Facebook group on February 26 at 1:49pm:
The ratio, between the BCS students from the preference area and "elsewhere" in the district, is about 3:7.
The total number of students from preference area is (very) roughly:
(((465-33 out-district)=432)*30%) at BCS+ 324 at Gardner) = 454 students.
The total number of students from elsewhere is 4,384+432-454=4,364. Ratio between them is roughly 1:9.6.
Web Link
The preference area is favored by 9.6/7*3 or about 4.1:1.
The kindergarten application lottery favored the preference area by 93/18 or about 5:1.
This is a very real problem. There are families who live outside the geographic preference area who's children are not thriving in the LASD curriculum. BCS is an alternative public curriculum that could be a much better fit. And yet they do not have equal access to it. Some apply and don't get in. Others don't even bother applying as they feel the odds are too low to waste the time and effort. And any one of those families would have a very solid case should they decide to retain the services of even the most mediocre of civil rights attorneys.
And here is the kicker: not only is there inequality in the ability for families to choose between public school curricula in LASD, but the inequality it is skewed so that the families from the wealthiest section have the most opportunity to choose. This is exactly why the words "elitest" and "boutique" are used often when describing Bullis Charter School.
So back to the memo. It states: "The Bullis Board rejected the proposal" to drop the admissions discrimination from their charter. Of course they did. They built their elitest charter school specifically for the families in Los Altos Hills who felt spurned by the closure of Bullis-Purissima. And since then they have already conceded half of the slots to kids outside their area (which I'm sure they are already none too pleased about). Of course they don't want to erode that exclusivity any more."

So, it's exceedingly clear that when when a BCS zealot keeps shouting about their charter kids and the "inequities", they really need to clean up their own mess.

How about this.
1. Get rid of the Bullis-Purrisma attendance priority TODAY.
2. Recruit equally among all demographics in LASD.
3. Allow LASD schools equal access to the monies collected in the BCS Charter Foundation.

When the wealthy and racial demographics are within 1% of the district, THEN they can be considered a truly PUBLIC LASD school and we can talk funding issues.

It's a fallacy to say that the former Bullis Purissima School attendance area is the wealthiest in LASD. That's just not true. The incomes in the Oak attendance area are every bit as high. Also, the same is true of Loyola School. But even if that were true, the income in any school attendance area is not uniform. The only valid issue is that perhaps there are roadblocks that keep the very low income kids, found at every school from applying to a charter school. There is a significant variation in the number of low income kids by school. Both Almond and Santa Rita have many more low income kids than the other schools, but this is not related to the charter school. That's a district decision as to how it draws boundaries. The district has barred BCS from presenting their option to the K parents looking at completing school applications for the following year's K class. That's not something BCS did, but rather LASD.

At no time in recent history has the BCS population been more than 30% from the preference area (and that's a generous ceiling estimate) of the school as a whole. The history of the preference area is that this school was closed for 5 years creating the desire to give those residents priority for a spot in BCS, since their neighborhood school had been closed (needlessly it seems since it was later reopened). This is not much of an issue at all.

A real issue is the way LASD has limited BCS in expanding to serve ALL existing demand from across LASD. They have tightly capped the growth from year to year, where this year BCS is limited to the mid 700's in enrollment. Only after 2 more years will BCS be allowed to serve 900 kids. This limitation comes from the district. The district cares about this precisely because there is demand from every attendance area, and each school would be smaller without these caps.

As part of the caps being raised, BCS agreed to phase out the preference area. Presumably if LASD removed the caps sooner, than so too would the preference area be phased out sooner.

In any event, there is no child in LASD that doesn't have a fairly good chance at being accepted to BCS and fitting under the size limit imposed by LASD. Even so, there are kids that live in one LASD attendance area but are forced by LASD to attend a different school. So, that's an issue for equity too. Some of these same kids actually attend BCS instead.