Sorry.. the growth in housing does equate to similar growth in school attendance.

People just aren't haven't as many kids as before.

This bond measure lacks vision. Instead of cramming more students into the current two sites, a third site is needed, closer to new housing growth. Vote "no" on this bond measure, and pressure the MVLA High School District to build where the growth is taking place. Otherwise, high school students will have to commute as much as six miles to school, adding to the already chronic traffic snarls in our city. The MVHS site has vacant land, which could be sold to build homes, with the proceeds used to buy land closer to the new student growth area.

I will vote no. I don't trust Fiona Walter and her political allies like Jose Gutierrez and Margaret Abe-Koga. They all support each other and are attempting to force their distorted visions on us. They should each stay in their own lane and manage only the entities the have a mandate for. I'm really not interested in their broader politics.

@ Les,

I'm confused by your comment. You don't trust Fiona, a resident of this area for decades, mother to a couple of kids raised in MV public schools? She's running a campaign to raise money to renovate our schools. These plans have public oversight....you could actually sit on that committee. You could even sit on the committee that decides how to spend the money. All she's doing is raising it. It's a weird thing to be distrustful about.

@Waldo and @Les and all

I have spent the past 5 years dealing with the political nightmare caused by the voters not giving the MVWSD the full amount of money that was needed to fully update our 11 schools and remove all temporary structures and replace any structures past their useful life and make the best use of our land. All these goals were dashed by the voters.

By all reasonable assessments, the MVWSD needed $421million to bring all 11 schools up to meeting the 21st century standards for all of our kids and have good solid facilities that would last 50-60 years.

If the voters had been willing to give the MVWSD the $421million, then we would have had all the construction done 3 years sooner and all 11 schools would have equity for all MVWSD students at all 11 schools. All facilities could be built without cutting massive corners. All facilities would have 50-60 year lifetimes. But.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

What happened is that the voters only gave the MVWSD $93million.
This meant that right at the start, every project would turn into a political war between different sets of parents. The Board was a hot mess and dysfunctional to the core. The Measure G money could never be stretched far enough to give every school what it wanted and worse, it was not enough money to give all schools what they actually needed. Some schools would get much more than other schools and some schools got much less.

If all that was not bad enough, all these political arguments and created wars between parent groups, all these mass meetings with hundreds of parents, all .....

What happened was that we LOST THREE YEARS of time and lost millions in spending power for the schools. Every week these projects got delayed cost the MVWSD about $220,000 in "opportunity costs" for each week of delay.

If not for the dysfunctional Board and the endless practice pitting of various parent groups against one another as they each try to save their school from the next group of parents, etc...

If not for the totally avoidable politics, we could have gotten the 11 reduced schools completed as much as 3 years ago, or at least by last year.

If the $295million Measure E bond fails, they will go back to try to get something less and then the MVLAHSD will also face the same nearly endless nightmare that we in the MVWSD have been forced to suffer since 2012 and the nightmare is still on-going for some unknown number of years.

If you don't support Measure E, then you only have yourself to blame for FAILING to LEARN from the HISTORY of your neighbor MVWSD experience that is not yet over.

Those who will not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat those same mistakes.

OoOps, typo above.
The voters gave the MVWSD $193million, NOT $93 as my typo said above.
$193million was Measure G.

Sorry for the typo.

@Otto_Maddox

Hi Otto, could you please take another look and post a more clear statement of what you were trying to indicate. Perhaps expand on your short sentences? I think I want to agree with you, but I can't tell as things are.

"Sorry.. the growth in housing does equate to similar growth in school attendance.

People just aren't haven't as many kids as before."

@2B-LAHS parent

"If not for the dysfunctional Board and the endless practice pitting of various parent groups against one another as they each try to save their school from the next group of parents, etc... "

You are 100% correct IMO on this point. And this is what Jose Gutierrez has proven to be all about.

I will add that we need better candidates. Nelson and Gutierrez have brought nothing but division and problems and have put progress back six years now. But we also need fresher perspectives. Fiona Walter and Margaret Abe-Koga represent entrenched thinking given their long tenures. We need new ideas and a break from the old paradigms. And I agree that the first place to start might be to combine the districts into a unified school district.

@Les of Cuernavaca

"""@2B-LAHS parent
"If not for the dysfunctional Board and the endless practice pitting of various parent groups against one another...""

"And this is what Jose Gutierrez has proven to be all about."

I was there when Jose was chosen and I have been to many Board meetings with him, I have spoken privately with him several times and I have not seen Jose inciting fights between groups of parents or between schools. Others, yes.

On Jose, my only problem is with what he has many times harped on, "diversity".
But, Jose has not once offered any sort of proposal as to how to achieve "diversity".
That's the problem, politicians claim they want "diversity", but wont define it and wont propose any actual method to achieve it. They take some token action and then pat themselves on the back and ignore the fact they did nothing that actually helped the totality of all the students. In fact, the attempts to attain "diversity" in a city like Mountain View can only do harm to all the students of the district.

And NOBODY else on the Board now or in the past, nor any of our Supt, nor even Nelson, in fact, nobody has EVER offered an actual proposal which even MIGHT make all or even a few of our schools reflect the over all diversity of Mountain View. Nothing has even been proposed that would in fact balance any of our schools by any criteria.

Of all our schools, NONE of them come close to reflecting the diversity of our city. Huff, Bubb and Stevenson all have 10% or less "free and reduced lunch students". And yet, the ONLY school ever discussed as a target for manipulation by the Board to achieve "diversity" is Stevenson. They give Huff/Bubb a pass. And no matter what punitive measures they take against Stevenson, it still will not balance the lop-sided demographics of Stevenosn, Theuerkauf, Castro, Monta Loma, Huff, Bubb or Landels and probably wont get "diversity" in the new N. Whisman school either.

But, hey, why not punish Stevenson for being so popular with the families of our district? It's an easy target for sucker-punches.
Wont make any real difference, but at least the politicians can claim they "did something" about "diversity".
They picked Stevenson as the designated "whipping boy" many years ago and just keep on whipping when ever they need an easy target for a distraction to the public.

I do find the clear and certain benefits to all our students by carefully crafting a set of boundaries for each of our 11 schools to achieve real goals that people will benefit from directly and openly and objectively. Like safe routes to school for example. Like eliminating the need for most of our busing of kids. Like reducing the excess traffic of parents driving their kids back and forth across each other. Like creating strong communities that are based on BOTH their local school AND based on their proximity to each other's homes. Like saving money which could be used to support all our students. etc...

For Stevenson and Mistral, the community for those schools revolves around the schools themselves and the entire city of Mountain View.

When politicians really want to make a big score, they take the easy route of "closing the achievement gap" by stomping down on and punishing the higher achievers so the "Gap" appears smaller, but in fact, they just damaged one set of kids so another set wont look so bad by comparison.

"Diversity" in relation to Mountain View is simply a divisive tool used by politicians and people who want to use it to justify doing something that wont produce the supposed goals or even measurable "progress" towards the supposed goal.

I certainly accept that other school districts have such obvious and clearly deliberate policies and practices designed to segregate students illegally. HOWEVER this is NOT the case here in MVWSD.

Let's see:

The Mountain View City Council is bringing in tens of thousands new residents through "dozens of major developments" and "ambitious plans to rezone the city's industrial regions and office parks into dense, urban neighborhoods" to accommodate the need of Googles and Microsofts to house their employees.

Regardless whether I agree with it or not (I do not!), the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District has decided that the CURRENT residents should pay thousands dollars a year to build school accommodations for the NEW comers.

Smart. Why don't you try that. The voters are dumb and will never notice under which cup you are hiding the ball in your shuffle.

What's the harm of those interested putting their strongest argument against a ballot measure? How does it benefit voters to hear one side of the story, from people who want the money. Maybe the bond is $295 million rather than $425 million because they are afraid people would then be convinced by stronger against arguments and vote it down?

LASD is not an example of wise school bond decision making. If that were the example = this MVLA high school bond would surely fail.

The MVLA building program can afford a NO. This happened before, about two decades ago. A big Bond did not pass.

They 'trimed their sails' and came back and passed a smaller spending plan. Now, they are simply asking for the maximum amount of $$$ per $100,000 of assessed valuation that they can in a 55% approval election. And the same old construction/management companies throwing money to the same political consultants and into the hats of the same local politicians.

that's how public school construction business works

@Citizen84

Because those residents wouldn't have come otherwise, right?

@Citizen84 Unless I am very mistaken the NEWCOMERS will also pay. Once they buy their house, their property tax bill will include this bond payment too, at least til 2039 or whenever the bond is paid off. And their yearly payment will most likely be more than mine, because I've owned my home for over 25 years and under prop 13, any new home in MV has a tax basis a lot higher than mine.