functional or "dysfunctional"?

There are several public policy tradeoffs that this elected board must make. Are they willing to get less votes, by having a higher tax, by excluding BCS from the game, by adding onerous "transparency" to BCS over and above the regular Oversight Committee structure? Are they willing to get less votes - by continuing a regressive tax structure (rather than "uniform tax rate" per SQFT size of buildings)?

The Los Altos City Council blew it (the community politics calculation) when they advanced a Community Center Bond measure that did not consider all the consequences to the taxpayers/residents. The City Council ended up spending Los Altos city money on a failed ballot measure.

"Dysfunctional" does not characterize either the LASD Board, LA City Council or, MVWSD Board. (I disagree w/ Mr. Lambert). However, "less well functioning" does certainly apply, if the LASD Board "blows it" by miscalculating the public interest - as expressed by their voters in November.

best of luck to them,

Steven Nelson is a member of the MVWSD Board, these are his own (political) opinions

Steven Nelson:

LASD has two parcel taxes. One is for $597 passed in 2002. The district views this tax as ongoing forever, i.e. perpetual. The measure approved called for bringing it back to the voters every 4 years, but they claim they found a loophole which lets them skip that.

Nevertheless, they collect $7.5 Million every year from the 2002 parcel tax.

All this vote concerns is a 2nd parcel tax, originally passed in 2011 as a "temporary" tax lasting for just 6 years. It was $193. The purpose was to make up for a drop off in basic property tax revenue. Since then the drop off has reversed and the district gets way more than ever before each year from property taxes. Next year alone, the revenue from ad valorem property taxes will yield LASD $2 Million more than this year.

So, the "increase" issue is not "price sensitive" to $30 because even just looking at Parcel taxes, the real proposed change is to go from $597 to either $790 or $820.

Who's going to worry about the last $30? The real issue is the extra $193 whether or not it is actually $223.

Also note that this November voters statewide will be voting whether or not to continue another "temporary" tax, the one on Income from Prop 30. LASD and MVWSD each get about $1 Million per year in "temporary" revenue from this tax.

The LASD models showing a need to continue Parcel Tax #2 ($193) show Prop 30 revenue ending, and they show a drop off in the increased rate of Property tax growth in general. Both of these assumption together could offset the failure of Parcel Tax #2 to pass. In fact, we'll know much better a year from now whether LASD really needs Parcel Tax #2 after next year. It continues through next year regardless, because that is the 6th year of the "temporary" period.

Thank you Clarity and Prop 30. I am acutely aware of both of this items - which it is good to remind the public of. The interesting thing about Parcel Tax #2, is, since it is so small compared to the perpetual one, is that is it the perfect way to (politically) mend fences with BCS. [it's not my community - but it seems needed] It is also a way to continue LASD very high funding with a more progressive, general electorate-attractive, per square foot tax structure.

I agree, Prop 30 will probably pass, property AV will probably continue to go up in Los Altos, and disaster will not befall the LASD whatever happens to a $193-223 "equivalent" local tax. But California does continue to be under-the-median, in it's K-12 educational spending nationally.. Even in LASD - the marginal costs of a small school tax, probably increases residential values more per year than it costs. It is known in educational macro-economics as "a signaling variable". It signals prospective residential investors that This Community Values its Schools. Same happens when you pass a local school bond! (there is much more data on that research)

Steven Nelson

Signaling (variable) - the electorate can also use the vote to 'signal the Board' that they are not leading the district as well as expected. That message, however, is not always as clear.

It makes sense to me. If the charter school is going to get local public funds, then it should disclose the same financial and other data as public schools - detailed staff salaries and benefits, status of interest-free loans for housing/remodeling to admin officials, number/type of students, detailed info regarding its foundation, and funds spent on public relations/marketing etc. This data has not always been easily accessible. Seems like a no-brainer.

I'd like the LASD to disclose how much it is spending on marketing for the Parcel Tax specifically. They talked about several mailers going out on the public dime in preparation for getting the renewal of the 2nd Parcel Tax passed. How much are they spending? Why is public money being spent to sway an election?

If you want info on any charter school, then look at its publicly available charitable tax return. You get lots of breakdown. An issue with some is that they have a parallel for-profit entity which gets lots of their money. I've pulled the Bullis returns and they don't do anything like this. Their biggest contractor is the County Office of Education.

This talk about sharing with Bullis is all a distraction. The real story is that they aren't disclosing to the voters that this is parcel tax #2. They already get $597 per parcel under Parcel Tax #1. They are asking for a vote to continue having TWO parcel taxes, and this talk is about sharing the SMALLER parcel tax with the charter school.

If there is a need for better disclosure, then this is it. You can get lots of info about any charter school in California at ed-data.org It's all there just like any other charter school. They make the same P2 ADA attendance reports as other public schools.

And as for home addresses, well, LASD has lots of kids from outside the district. Why don't they disclose THEIR home addresses? And who should they disclose to? The addresses are private data. If LASD isn't going to check the residence of their own students they have no reason to check them for the charter school.

LASD does check addresses. You have to provide proof of residency upon applying a new student, however, this isn't done on an annual basis and I can envision abuse of this system - not just for LASD but for all more-affluent districts.

I live north of El Camino Real, technically part of MV, and moved here intentionally to have my kids go to LASD schools. If they didn't have the current district zones, I probably would have moved to Belmont instead, also with equivalent schools in terms of API scores and socio-economic demographics. I think it's obvious if they didn't hold current district maps, enrollment would perhaps dip below a threshold where LASD would have to shutter a school or, even worse, give up that closed school to Bullis, their arch nemesis and siphon of students and their accompanied, potential donors.

Lastly, my kids got accepted into Bullis but I turned them down (for now). As Bullis is a charter school, I wouldn't be bound by having to reside in specific locations and this is a huge positive for a young family that isn't wealthy by Silicon Valley standards. With that said, it makes little sense to force Bullis to disclose addresses of students as long as them meet their requirements of enrolling whatever percentage of students that must be local.

LASD discloses all expenditures in the minutes of their meetings. This includes any marketing and survey consulting costs that you are falsely alluding to LASD hiding. Student addresses are checked and all out of district student counts are openly admitted.

If the community is going to pay for a needed parcel tax increase and share it with the Charter, then BCS needs to be just as open as LASD is.

And yes, this tax is sorely needed if you have paid any attention to the costs required to maintain our level of education, to reduce our need on parent private donations, and to address the cost of the living disparity our teachers are faced with.

@Disclosure -- LASD does check addresses. Both my kids attended LASD from K through 8. Our address was confirmed when we initially enrolled, and multiple times after that (though not annually). There is nothing wrong with expecting BCS to provide appropriate levels of transparency, and being subject to appropriate oversight, in exchange for proportional participation in the parcel tax revenues. If they are as well run and above reproach as they've always claimed, then they should have no hesitation in accepting this.

So, if a child was enrolled with his grandparents' address, even if he did not live in the grandparents' house, then LASD would detect this? I don't think so. State law has recently been changed to say that children of household staff can attend school in the district where their parent works, but only if the child also resides in the house 3 days a week or more. And LASD checks for this too? And if you had relocated outside the district, but had your mail forwarded, then LASD would follow up and find out that you weren't living in the district any more?

And, if you had permission from the district to attend even if you did not live in the district, then you would still be entitled to a share of the parcel tax revenues for all of your children?

Why should LASD make a big deal about verifying that BCS students reside the district? Surely this is not realistically much of an issue.

And the issue is not about honesty and following the law on the part of BCS. LASD is considering asking that BCS actually report the attendance of its non-resident versus its resident students separately, which is something that it is not legally required to do (Neither is LASD). LASD does not track the ADA of its nonresident students. Why should it be able to require BCS to do so?

It all depends on how the parents of BCS students feel about having their addressees and attendance information turned over to LASD, which is clearly eager to find fault. And they would be doing this knowing that they would be subject to more scrutiny than LASD's own students, and certainly subject to scrutiny by a separate mechanism. They are already subject to monitoring by BCS, but they would be subject to scrutiny by a 2nd entity having nothing to do with their child's education.

I don't know if I would vote to support a parcel tax add on like that. It might be different if there were to be sharing of the ENTIRE parcel tax, but that's not what LASD is talking about. It seems to me that they should be less rigid when they are talking about giving BCS students 25% of their fair share in the best case, and not create so much added bureaucracy. They could just simply use the total reported ADA, regardless of district residence, just as they do for their own students (with a known 100 or so being non resident).

LASD has asked for BCS data and specifically for the names and addresses of all BCS students to verify "in district" status. This information is protected by FERPA (a Federal law protecting the privacy rights of all school children, including LASD school children). This information HAS been given to LASD by BCS as LASD is bound to comply wth FERPA laws in handling said information (which allows LASD to verify student addresses as being in-district.) SO, the header on this article is a mis-nomer and LASD likes to mislead the media and give the impression BCS does not share data and other information, when in fact it does-- it's just that LASD doesn't seem to want to be bound by FERPA.
Just as I could no more ask for LASD for all its student addresses (which FERPA would preclude), LASD cannot just have BCS hand over the info and allow the likes of David Cortright or other community internet trolls to access that information. LASD can have it, and has had it, subject to FERPA.
BCS cannot hand it over to LASD without FERPA protections, as BCS would be breaking the law. But BCS has handed over the info, and complied with FERPA. LASD is playing games again. Taxpayers beware!
I'd like to know how many out of district students LASD admits. Between the Allen Act, the MOU with PAUSD and other school districts, the taxpayers would be surprised to know how many out of district students we're subsidizing with our basic aid dollars. LASD has been asked numerous times and refuses to respond. Kenyon and Baier would rather hide that information from us.... again, not looking for those out of district addresses or even student names.... just how many are there under MOU with each school district and under Allen Act?

If BCS is already providing the student data to LASD, then there should be no problem in agreeing to the condition of taking even MORE public money from the public schools.

The fact is that BCS is trying to hide the fact that they are bending the rules to target students that will score the highest in testing. It's called "creaming" and is grossly unfair to the truly public schools in LASD.

The entire LASD enrollment is 95% "cream". No amount of data will make the charter school in LASD look much "richer" in milk fat than that.

LASD is very bad at serving the small amount of underprivileged kids in the district. Meanwhile the charter school does everything it can to reach out and to enroll these kids, but the district thwarts the efforts. Despite LASD's reported problems with achieving anywhere near the same level of academic success with the underprivileged, one former Board Member admitted that they discourage the underprivileged from applying to the charter. He claimed the charter school wouldn't do as good of a job. This is where the hooey is, and no where else.

Regardless, how is tracking the addresses of charter school students going to show anything about their underprivileged enrollment? The underprivileged in LASD are present in every corner of the city. It's a really small number, but of the total maybe 20% are in each of 2 schools with higher concentrations, and then the remaining
students are spread out across the other 5 schools. Their addresses aren't the problem.

To serve the underprivileged kids, LASD needs to look at the added benefits enjoyed by the majority of students. One big example is after school care and after school enrichment programs. There are big fees for these programs, but many students in LASD participate, probably 50%+. But the underprivileged can't join after school programs (including childcare) because of the fees. Meanwhile, the programs are subsidized by having access to school grounds and school facilities and be having the programs publicized in the classroom and to the parents.

I'd say LASD should be providing scholarships to poor kids for both after school care AND enrichment programs. Both are probably more important to the academic success of the poor kids than they are to those who currently attend them. Catch 22.

At the charter school, all these programs are available to everyone at the school, with no fees to pay.

Dear LASD Board of Trustees,

I am very concerned that this parcel tax is NOT going to pass. Only twenty percent of LASD residents have kids enrolled in LASD schools. You need to make all of the potential voters happy and right now they see you as a board intent on wasting the measure N funds. Also it appears that you are trying your hardest to restart litigation with BCS. The vast majority of voters want improvements at every campus and a peaceful community. Change your path now, before it is to late:

1. Come up with a reasonable plan for spending measure N funds. Forget wasting the bond on a real estate purchase, use the land you already have at Covington. Spend the money making improvements at every campus. Especially those that really need it. (SR, Oak, Egan, BCS)

2. Make a clear plan for sharing the parcel tax with BCS, if you continue to threaten them they are not going to go along with it, and frankly we need their support.

3. Covington is not the only school in the district, stop governing like it is. Sharing the Covington site is the best solution for everyone. To be blunt, if you continue down your questionable path of buying property along El Camino makes it much less likely that the parcel tax will pass. Just taking no action it is NOT going to work. You need to clearly state that you have decided to use existing property.

4. Work to bring peace to the community. Most people are fine with BCS. Lets keep that in mind.

Thank you fellow BCS supporters that continue to fight the public schools on this important issue! Please continue to push for closing of Covington. BCS deserves the entire campus and not those less effective public schools.

Thank you.

There are many ideas to house the charter school. If building a second school
at Covington is not acceptable to the 3 board members who live nearby, then how about Oak? It would be a shame for the portable buildings to go to waste after BCS moves out. Why not relocate Oak to the BCS at Blach buildings? That would fit them into 2 acres of land. How special! And then you can put still more portables at Oak and put all of BCS at that one site (10 acres or 9 acres if you leave the preschool onsite).

Sounds like a plan.

Who says you have to close Covington? I just don't know where people come up with these ideas.

And rest assure, BCS would not LIKE to be located at Oak, so it fits the #1 criteria of the LASD muckety mucks in regards to a permanent solution.

Of course not ;)
Just because you won't admit it does not make it untrue.

I'd love to have the spotlight fixed on BCS's enrollment and financial stats. That would be a FASCINATING read, hahaha.
The day of reckoning is near.