The main change from this construction will be the loss of a neighborhood park, not just the softball field. On the other hand, the site is really not that different from the other schools, aside from not being located next to a park. Stevenson is on only 3 acres of land so this is quite a bit bigger. When they finish construction on Mistral, it and Castro will be very similar. It's an 8.4 acre site shared between 2 schools, so they are each the same size as this new school. About 2 acres of the Castrol/Mistral site are formed into a small city park, meaning the school buildings and class areas are only about 6.2 acres split between the two.

I think this site will look different than Bubb, Huff and Landels, but not Castrol, Stevenson, Theuerkauff and Mistral.

Mountain View never ceases to amaze me. There's already a perfectly good school on the Slater campus. Why do we have to spend 10s of millions of dollars and lose heavily used community assets (open space and baseball/softball fields) in order to 'squeeze' a new school onto the remaining acreage. Google doesn't own the Slater school buildings - they lease the buildings. If my memory serves,the school district just renewed the lease knowing full well that the student population was growing and that the classrooms would be needed by the district. Mountain View has become a one company town. For better or worse, Google owns Mountain View lock, stock and barrel. What ever happened to Google's motto of 'do no evil'? I think it fell by the wayside.

I agree with "do no evil." Google is proposing millions of new square footage over in North Bayshore, and they can't find space for their employees' children? We are down 2 schools in Mountain View (Whisman, Slater). I can't argue about Whisman - while it is no longer a public school, there are now 2 schools there, and the children are attending elementary school. Slater is being used as a PRE SCHOOL. This is a complete betrayal to the citizens of Mountain View. We stand to lose valuable physical education space for both children and adults, and a school for our children is shrunk in space to fit Google's needs.

Google is PAYING for the site at Slater. If they were getting it for free, I can understand a bit of your comments. They did not want to open Slater years ago because it would cost money AND they would lose the rent money.

I don't really like public assets being used for private needs either (unlike GISSV which anyone can apply to, only Google employees are eligible for the child care program at Slater). But the District needs the lease revenue from Google in order to support programs. Vote for a bigger parcel tax and then we can talk about shedding this revenue source.

That rent money would be more than made up by letting all school property taxes captured by the Shoreline Tax District freely flow to the school districts.

Google has plenty of land available to locate its own child care center.

Why are we being presented 4 options with the field separating the schools? Why can't we see the option of the field staying where it is and the schools being back to back? Currently, there are facilities that house some special programs and a preschool, are they being moved or also accommodated in this plan. Why so much parking? None of these options move the MUR location, for example, closer to the classrooms on the edge, or combine buildings? Could the library not go in the corner between the classrooms surely it doesn't have to be a square building! I just think more thought could be put into this.

Very disappointed that the school board is bending over backwards to accommodate Google, a rich private company. The number one priority should be the put in the best possible school for MV residents at that site, not to extend Google's lease for their private, employee-only preschool.

This mismanagement will play into how I vote on the upcoming parcel tax. If the school board can't put MV's children ahead of Google, why should we vote for the parcel tax?

@Marcell,

That's the most poorly considered position I've read here. If the school board doesn't throw away the revenue from leasing the space, you'll vote against a parcel tax? What's next, will they need to destroy the buildings before you'll vote for more funding?

option #1
Kick out google and there isn't enough money to build a school

option #2
Keep Google and there is money to build a school on a smallish footprint

option #3:
There's already a perfectly good school on the Theuerkauf campus.

@ everyone...
As someone who has actually been paying close attention and attending the meetings and reading the presentations for a few years now, lets get a few details straight.

Option 1 "Take back old Slater"
Problems:
1) We lose about 2 million a year in operating money from loss of Google lease. Google long-term lease would about double or more the current lease price.
2) The old Slater is no longer up to required standards and would cost almost as much to renovate to current standards as it will to build a new Slater. Google has made quite a few modifications to old Slater.
3) Without Google long-term lease money, no construction loan to build a needed preschool or renovate old Slater or rebuild the District Office or even complete all the other 8 schools. The lease money from Google and the German school are the collateral for the loans.

Option 2 "keep Google and build smallish new Slater"
Problem: Loss of park space.
Gain: New-built Slater fully up to standards in the Whisman/Slater neighborhood.

Option 3 "Move Slater kids to Theuerkauf"
Problems: Theuerkauf does have extra space, but not nearly enough to accommodate the whole Whisman/Slater area.
The parents of Whisman/Slater made it clear they would not accept that move, they insisted that the only acceptable outcome was a school in their local neighborhood.

Parcel tax issue:
The newly proposed parcel tax replaces one that is about to expire, it's not "new" money", just a little more than before. MVWSD parcel tax is far lower than any surrounding or nearby parcel tax. If MVWSD had a more typical parcel tax compared to other districts, we would not need lease money from Google or the German school, but Mountain View voters wont pass it.

Slater placement question: "other configurations considered?"
Yes, many many configurations have been put up for consideration over the years and the current ones take a huge pile of issues into consideration that most people would not know about unless they did quite a lot of research. Just one tricky issue was meeting fire lane requirements. The many issues are not so obvious as just looking at some diagrams.

@ST: Thank you for your clearly written response regarding options that have been presented re the Slater site and the new Slater School. It is so nice to read something from someone who has attended the meetings and is knowledgeable!!

@ST Parent

Option 4: "Eliminate or reform the Shoreline Tax District"

Problem: Needs City leadership
Gain: More of (or all of) the Shoreline property tax increment flows to schools (as it ought to be), no more dependency on leases, Google relocates to land it owns and frees up room for public school students.

Also -Thank you ST Parent. I also, over several years have 'attended the meetings'. (haven't we seen each other :) I don't think I could disagree with any of your points.

The art of politics, is compromise.

I think Mr. Lee - long time project management consultant, Interim Sup. Skelly, Superintendent Rudolph and CBO Clark have been managing this compromise well. The Boards of the MVWSD - over the last 4 years - have set this direction of public policy. It is no easier than the North-Bayshore plan that the public policy makers of the city, the City Councils, have been making over the same period of time. (IMO = In My Opinion)

BTW - the MVWSD gives up about 6-7 AC of district owned property to the residents around the Cooper Park city park. Is that the best and equitable use of that school district owned land? The lease cost to the city is $0 per year. The revenue to education of the rest of the communities children? $0 per year. (there is a 5 AC city owned park at Cooper, there is a very large city regional park at Cuesta, a few blocks away)

@ Just saying OPTION #4 is the ELEPHANT in the Room for local school funding. It is significantly larger than the proposed $2.8 M/yr Parcel Taxl proposal. The Shoreline contract with the Shoreline/City JPA is a limited year contract, for less than half of the millions that would go yearly to MVWSD. I voted against that 'sellout' (a privilege of MVWSD elective office) but I was outvoted 4:1. New Trustee Blakely knows the details of that Tax Increment diversion by the Shoreline District. It is one of the extremely few remnants (Quasi-RDA in the County Tax documents) of the old state redevelopment law. THE STATE LEGISLATURE would have to pass a law- altering the 1969 special legislation forming Shoreline, that permanently diverts the normal local property tax from our local schools.

County records say Cooper School was 10 acres. The remainder is leased to Action Primary Plus
for preschool, presumably at a far lower rate than Google pays per acre (less building space
at Cooper School).

What I think should be explored is to replace one wing of Old Slater with a new leased pre-fab 2 story
modular building. This could be repaid out of the Google lease proceeds. If the Google lease ever
ends it could be appended to the new School.

Then one of the old existing wings could be torn down too, and that 1/2 acre of land
appended to the playground of the new school.

Or do the same to the Action Primary plus area, and get a 2nd tenant there!

@Cooper Park: At the first neighborhood meeting with the architects I asked a similar question, which was if they had considered having the preschool and neighborhood school sharing a building so more green space could be preserved. They didn't laugh at me, but they came pretty close. Basically, from their perspective, dealing with two clients (Google and MVWSD) at the same time would drive costs through the roof and push the schedule out months and months. As @Steven Nelson said above, it's about compromise.

I also want to reiterate @ST Parent's comment to @other configurations considered? - The reason the schools weren't abutted next to each other was to keep the fire lane in the middle able to put out a fire in either school.

Also, in talking to the architects, a baseball field is still possible, and there was good support at the second meeting to keep one at the site. They were gathering data on how many feet the average schoolyard field was to the fence and it was seeming as though it would fit in the school yard.

"If my memory serves,the school district just renewed the lease knowing full well that the student population was growing and that the classrooms would be needed by the district."
Can anyone back this up? Mr. Nelson? When did the school district renew the lease, and when did it decide that reopening Slater was inevitable sooner or later?

That last poster is asking a good question. When did the District renew a lease with Google and what does that lease provide? We understand that leasing out school sites is a trick to get more operating funds for salaries and benefits. And slater is not the only school being leased out by this District.

Good point. It's always pushed that if we don't rent these sites to, for example, Google daycare, we won't have enough money for the schools. Is it the schoools or kids themselves or is it big bonuses for incompetent people like Ayinde- and wasted monies in sums such as $521,000 for TTO that we just literally threw away?

Slater modifications/lease to GOOGLE. The original modifications to our property, were done under the control of a previous Board. (2005 time frame?) That Board did not pay attention to the implications of just letting GOOGLE use city code, rather than the more stringent school code (DSA) to do permanent changes to the facility. Ask THOSE old Board members why they missed that or did not question.

The GOOGLE current lease - is not yet for a long period. A few years more - like the Cooper lease which is coming for renewal; (yearly). The exact term of leases are public documents - get from the MVWSD web site - or ask Chief Information Officer.

SYLVAN PARK property conveyance to the City - contains a 10 AC guarantee to the school district for a future Public School. Those 10 AC are not in any plan - for the next decades, for any new school. The City parks and recreation and girls softball interests should (IMO) explore the building of a full field THERE!
Web Link
The school reserved property, is on Sylvan near the corner containing the parking lot. Look at County Assessor maps - or the property documents - also available from the City Clerk - or the MVWSD CIO.

COMPROMISE The MVWSD delayed work on our school kids all-weather field facility at Crittenden, so the City could finish building a FANTASTIC NEW multi-field facility for league play out in Shoreline and negotiate the city bike path on the Eastern edge of MVWSD property. [link to Shoreline Athletic Fields view]
Web Link

The primary use of school field property - is school-time district use. (not the ONLY community use - just first priority) The art of politics, is compromise. The City and MVWSD have had, and continue to have, one of the finest cooperative relationships of any community in the state! (IMO)

It is illegal to convert public schools to private schools. Period.
Homeowners have been paying a special parcel tax for the last ten years to support schools, and we have not had one. That's crazy no matter how you rationalize things.

We want our school back and we shouldn't have to pay for what already belongs to us. This is crazy.

Anybody knows what the makeup of the student body at the new school will be?
Similar to Theuerkauf and Castro or to Huff and Bubb? Or something like Monta Loma which is the middle ground in my view?

What do you mean by makeup of the student body? What's the difference between Castro and Huff that makes Montana Loma the middle ground?

@Mt. View Neighbor

"It is illegal to convert public schools to private schools. Period."

Really??? I don't recall even Steve Nelson claiming that.
Besides, I've seen many such conversions and not only in California.

You may "feel", as I do, that closing a school is the second worst thing a school district can ever do, but that does not make it illegal and does not always make it the wrong decision. Sometimes events occur that are beyond the control of the district that can only result in a school closure.

While I still believe the closure of the old Slater was a huge mistake and could have been avoided by smart dedicated people who tried really hard to avoid it, I do accept that the earlier closure of Whisman was fully unavoidable once the military was ordered to pull out (mostly) from Moffet Field.

The entity that "owns" the schools and property they sit on is the local school district, NOT the neighborhood! No neighborhood is assured that they will have a walking-distance school.

I spent almost my entire K-12 life riding the school bus because there was no school within even bike-riding distance. For some schools I was on the bus over 2 hours a day.

"Homeowners have been paying a special parcel tax for the last ten years to support schools, and we have not had one. That's crazy no matter how you rationalize things."

No, that's just a lie no matter how rationalize it.
All the families in the district had a school they could send their kids to, plus 2 choice schools to try for and even the option of requesting a transfer to one of the other schools and to apply to schools outside the district.

The people of the Whisman/Slater area got the shaft from the Federal government and their original school district called the "Whisman School District" which failed to properly manage the situation caused by the Feds. That mismanagement not only obligated the area to an extra it of taxation for some years, it also forced the merger of Mountain View and Whisman School Districts.

"We want our school back and we shouldn't have to pay for what already belongs to us. This is crazy."

You're getting "your" school back and if the K-12 kid population does live up to the desires of the Whisman/Slater area parents, then another school will be needed in that area at some point.

What's "crazy" is having such a distorted sense of reality and the facts and the laws.

Huff is more affluent, Castro is predominantly low income, and I believe the poster above is thinking ML is middle ground. However, while there are white students at Monta Loma in the lower grades they leave by upper and overall 66% are on free lunch.

All info is available on greatschools.org. I know ML is a 7, Castro is a 4, and Huff is at least a 9, maybe a 10.

Currently on Great Schools website:
Bubb, Huff and Stevenson are 10
Landels is 8
Castro and Monta Loma are 7
Theuerkauf is 4

Web Link

The test scores and rankings will likely change a lot after Slater reopens and the school boundaries are changed starting in 2019-2020 school year.

I apologize in advance if this is not the right forum to ask this question. I was wondering if anyone knew when the Great Schools website updates their scores every year? I feel like in past years this usually happened in the fall, but doesn't seem to have happened yet. I keep hearing about the higher scores in Mountain View schools, but I don't see that reflected on the website. I'd like to see those before I make a decision about where to send my kindergartener this year. Ideally we could see that before mid-March when private school decisions are announced. Thanks.

Unfortunately the great schools scores are a bit unreliable right now due to the roll out of common core a couple years (?) back. It's best to look at API scores but to be honest I'm not sure where to find those.

Honestly I do NOT think Crittenten is an 8.

I think scores will catch up to common core testing in 1-2 years. I wonder if you could contact great schools for more info though? For now, ask around. Parents have very strong opinions about their schools, good or bad :)

Great Schools reduces school test data to a single number, which is a flawed approach to understanding a school to say the least.

If you want CA test score data go to the CDE site here:
Web Link

What matters most is how students like your child are performing. Monta Loma has a lot of low-income families in its attendance area and its overall scores reflect that. What I would look at is how students in your ethnic/socioeconomic group perform.

There is no such thing as an API anymore and hasn't been for a few years. The new system is called CAASP and is based on the Common Core standards.

Well, I was one with your train of thought. Most members of my children's socioeconomic status and race fared the same across the district, so I could send them to any school and be okay, right?

Up to a point, sure.

Until they were in 4th and 3rd with students alongside reading at 1st and K levels, respectively, with others with major behavioral issues. Then they started to really slide back down those test scales. It was a nightmare. So that train of thought: well, it runs backwards at some point, unfortunately.

So, will the new school be more like Castro or more like Huff?
Does anyone know?

@Observer

"So, will the new school be more like Castro or more like Huff?
Does anyone know?"

If you mean will the buildings at the NEW-built Slater look more like the NEW-built Castro or like the OLD Huff renovated,? I think it's clear that it will in fact look much more like a cross between the NEW-built Castro and the NEW-built Stevenson plans, except that NEW Slater will have some 2-story buildings.

If you mean how well the new Slater will operate and how well the kids will perform, then it depends on how well engaged the parents will be in the education of their kids. My guess is that the new Slater will have a good start because many Slater parents will have known Huff and Stevenson schools and will understand how to organize and get engaged with their school.

Again, just my guess, but I think the Whisman/Slater folks fought long and hard to get their new school and I just don't think they would allow it to fail to perform very well.

The building plans (or options) for each school constructions plans are available on-line from the MVWSD web-site.

If the German School's lease were not renewed, could that site be re-opened as Slater 2.0, instead of building a "new" Slater?

Is that a viable option? What would be the advantages/disadvantages?

@german school swap

The German school's lease was renewed for 25 years recently. It's a similar deal to what ST parent describes above in an earlier comment. The excess lease money from the GIISV and Google day care leases are being used to finance a $40M loan (Certificate of Participation) that enables the district to build a new school on the Slater campus (est $25M) and complete the various schools across the district and the district office.

@ a resident, thanks for the reply

But if the German school lease was renewed for 25 yrs, then what is being discussed at the next Board meeting (Feb 2)? [Agenda Item Title: Discussion on German International School of Silicon Valley Lease (45 minutes)]

Also, regarding your point about leveraging German school / Google lease revenue to finance the $40M Slater loan, when might it may make more fiscal sense to use the Google revenue alone to secure a smaller loan ($15M), and save $25M by not building a new school on the Slater site shared with Google?

More simply put: what's the break-even amount of lease revenue the district needs to receive from the German school each year to outweigh the cost of financing a new building for Slater?

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