It's been a boom time but the district has been spending even more than the boom provided? We'll be up a creek when the downturn eventually happens.

I never understood why the Board agreed to build a new school at Slater while schools like Monta Loma and Theuerkauf sit half empty. I know there was emotional attachment to having a school in that neighborhood to replace the one that was closed earlier, but if the district doesn't have the money for a new school it should never have been built.

It has begun.

How about instead of the City Council demanding large amounts of affordable housing and putting more strain on budgets, they instead ask for an annual education fee to support the kids? A first rate education extends many benefits and piling on more children (and needs) without adequate resources seems like an unending disaster.

Can I say "I told you so"?

When all the spending was just being planned some people, myself included, said "Hey.. let's save some of this cash for a rainy day."

That fell on deaf ears.

It's raining now people. No money for umbrellas.. sorry.

I know teachers have to live in this expensive area, but I saw this coming with the recent generous raises. The city council was patting themselves on the back for those big raises. So short-sighted, imo. Thanks teachers' union. Thx city council. If we're in this position now, during boom times, wait 'til the real downturn happens.

Instructional aides "are integral for providing day-to-day assistance and support for students with special needs." Yet the elimination of their substitutes "shouldn't have an effect on special needs students."

Riiiiiight.

How about killing off the babysitting contract with Peter Gorman? (Or dock Ayinde's pay by an equal amount.)

That will save ~$70K per year.

I hope the Board takes a careful look at other consulting contracts. LOTS of money being spent their for no good reason.

To the person up above who blamed Bullis, please do “can” it. Income is up 20%, and then the district blew past that in spending, particularly on meeting union demands. Blowing past this boom time windfall was stupid, because this sort of thing is cyclica and when revenues fall hard, as they ALWAYS do, the district will be completely underwater financially. Of course, they just keep trying to pass bonds rather than be fiscally responsible, so here we are.

No matter how many new schools are built, they won’t be in demand unless their SED students rate is around maybe 20% max?
I have no idea what slater will look like in terms of low income kids. This will make or break the school.
As for Bullis, there is demand for a school that would be attuned to high achieving kids’ needs. If the district does not saturate the demand, the charters will. I don’t believe for a split second that Bullis will have over 10% SED students.
Make Slater/Vargas highly attractive for educated families by opening special programs and charters will not be needed. MV is changing and it is not just about closing the achievement gap anymore.

Trustee Coladonato warned us this would happen!
And if he was still on the Board he would have a solution.
Thank you Trustee Coladonato for doing what you did and investing not only your time but your business acumen. Too bad more Trustees and the parents didn't listen.

Don't worry folks. Ayinde Rudolph will be announcing he will be moving on about this time next year. His five years will be up. He and Peter Gorman fleeced the district and will now move on to the next. All the consultant money has been spent. All the reasons for the flavor-of-the-week programs to reform math or rescue English Learners and personnel shifts firings will be forgotten. Nothing will have changed. Board members such as Gutierrez will never figure out why the achievement gap persists. Board Member Wheeler will keep getting re-elected. Board Member Giggles Blakley will still look like a deer caught in the headlights. And then in comes a new starry-eyed superintendent and the dog and pony show starts anew.

While Bullis does make this more challenging, blaming Bullis does not address the underlying governance mistakes at the root of this problem. This was projected to happen in 2017 when they pledged to avoid this exact predicament: ç

The challenge is the board didn't demand the district to follow standard fiscal practices. Teachers needed higher pay and most certainly deserved their health care restored, but that should be sought by making a case to the community via increasing the parcel tax or via other cuts, not through one-time reserve spending. Fine to spend down reserves on one-time bonuses, but to increase on-going salaries and benefits on the back of reserves was short-sighted.

Though the biggest hole isn't salaries but the funding for new school construction, by not using bond funds, and refunneling lease funds, that took $2 million out of the general fund. More info: While Bullis does make this more challenging, blaming Bullis does not address the underlying governance mistakes at the root of this problem. This was projected to happen in 2017 when they pledged to avoid this very problem: Web Link The conventional approach would have been to go get another bond by this time in point rather than loan out general revenue. Measure G was 7 years ago, other districts would have started their second bond by now, MVWSD should too.

While Bullis does make this more challenging, blaming Bullis does not address the underlying governance mistakes at the root of this problem. This was projected to happen in 2017 when they pledged to avoid this exact predicament: Web Link

The challenge is the board didn't demand the district to follow standard fiscal practices. Teachers needed higher pay and most certainly deserved their health care restored, but that should be sought by making a case to the community via increasing the parcel tax or via other cuts, not through one-time reserve spending. Fine to spend down reserves on one-time bonuses, but to increase on-going salaries and benefits on the back of reserves was short-sighted.

Though the biggest hole isn't salaries but the funding for new school construction, by not using bond funds, and refunneling lease funds, that took $2 million out of the general fund. The conventional approach would have been to go get another bond by this time in point rather than loan out general revenue. Measure G was 7 years ago, other districts would have started their second bond by now, MVWSD should too.

So rather than leave a good program alone, a very weak School Board, egged on by unions and bureaucrats caved in and stupidly initiated "a huge spending spree that included big raises for both of the district's unions, special funds set aside for lower-performing schools, a complete revamp of middle school schedules and a "co-teaching" model intended to help kids with special needs."

The School Board needs to learn that when you spend limited money, you must aim to get "the most bang for your buck". Expensive programs for "special" and under performing students may FEEL good, but they are useless to the great majority of students enrolled in the school district. Those students' educations give the greatest "bang for the buck" because in the end we need them to grow our local economy and quality of life.

In the last MV Whisman School Board election, I read the credentials of all four (is this right?) candidates running and none of them appeared to be even remotely qualified to be responsible for intelligent, highly trained, and competent management of something as essential and complex as properly educating the children of Mountain View. None had any of the skills necessary to succeed as managers in a competitive business environment. Until MV Whisman can attract truly qualified board members who can make sound fiscal, educational, legal, and especially resource allocation decisions, then the District is doomed to grossly terminal sub-medeocrity and failure for children who deserve solid educations.

If I had children, I'd enroll them in either Bullis or in an academically superior private school. I've lost all faith in MV Whisman SD. It is far too concerned with politically-correct Form and not with real-world Substance. To be blunt, it is blindly incompetent and never had a chance to succeed.

The US Census 2020 will likely show a large growth in the student population. That census is not only important in guiding policymakers, but also in funding for our local MV schools. We better get a good and accurate count so we get the money that is due to us.

I'm not against giving teachers raises. The problem with public schools is that EVERY teacher get the same raise, even the ones who are horrible, ineffective teachers. We all know who they are. They get passed around from one school to another and they gain seniority and can't get fired while the young, energetic, effective teachers get the ax. I'm so fed up that I will vote no on all school bonds. We can't continue to be the easy fix because the Board won't make the tough decisions to live within the district's means.

"Live within its means?" [from the post above] Yes, the board needs to tighten its oversight, but it is also true that: MVWSD gets $13,494 per pupil Web Link and the high school district gets $20,882 Web Link And MVLA has passed two bonds during the time MVWSD has had just one.

It is no surprise that MV is often praising its high school district and perplexed by the issues facing MVWSD. It's easy to look good when you have that much more money.

So, yes to more board oversight, and yes to funding these two systems equally. It's crazy to deprive children K-8 and K-8 teachers, then all of a sudden invest a much great amount 9-12, when it's so much harder to intervene with struggling students when they are older, and K-8 teachers are just as skilled, yet get paid $20,000-40,000 less than their HS counter parts in the same city.

At the very least, why are Shoreline city tax funds given to MVLA equally to MVWSD, when MVLA already has so much? Can't MVLA part with some its extra funds to fund some of the intervention programs now slated for termination? Doesn't MVLA benefit in the end to invest in MVWSD 6-8 under the same premise that MVWSD invests in preschools?

MVWSD needs both more oversight and more money.

Isn't this the definition of incompetence? Instituting a bunch of programs with no funds to sustain them? Unbelievable.

Interesting that the priority/ bulk of the new spending as well as that which won't be cut, goes to the low income families = primarily hispanic = undocumented and/or legal anchor baby kids born to undocumented. "Not low-income" kids need strong education too! What's wrong with our system when we can't afford to properly educate Americans but divert the bulk of our resources to non-Americans? I'm all for equality but when the benefits of illegals exceed those of legals we have a problem. We've opened the floodgates to welcome anybody that steps across the border with free education, healthcare, food, etc and then complain that we don't have enough money to sustain our valued programs without continuing to increase taxes (Christopher Chang seems to think that new parcel taxes/ bond measures are "no-brainer" solutions - you know, you just open up the bag and pull out more money!). That 70% tax is coming soon to a neighborhood near you...

Opening Slater/Vargas when there was not a need was a costly mistake.

Our teachers deserved their raises/salaries. I repect them and appreciate what they’re doing to educate our children. Of course there are a few bad apples as there are in every single profession! For those who think they know how schools should be run and how students should be taught, keep your own kids at home and homeschool them.
Just a Bullis Charter School has been a thorn in LASD’s side, so too will BMV be just like a growing wart that we can’t get rid of. Sigh..

Wash, Rinse, Repeat has it wrong. The pattern for the last two Superintendents is: the Superintendent will be granted another 5 year contract. Then at the end of the first year, there will be an expensive buyout to get rid of him.

@Surprised?

"Isn't this the definition of incompetence? Instituting a bunch of programs with no funds to sustain them?"

No, it's the definition of normal California politics.
Dominated by tax & spend one-party rule.

" Unbelievable. "

I must assume you're new to California?

The Whisman area has a large population of youth and new housing now, so Slater/Vargas and Bullis are excellent and needed options for thus neighborhood. Stop blaming these new schools for fiscal problems largely stemming from inefficient union costs and special program spending....

@Mike of Whisman Station

"The Whisman area has a large population of youth and new housing now,"

The Whisman/Slater area had 400 kids in the Slater school back in 2004 and several dozens who were attending other schools around the MVWSD. Next year the new Vargas school will have roughly 450+ kids enrolled. So, the Whisman/Slater area simply has not seen any growth over the decades.

The "new" housing is not expected to produce any increase of public school kids for many years yet and even then, not many.

Vargas was not built due to growth in Whisman/Slater area kids, it was built because of overcrowding at some of the other schools in MVWSD. The boundaries got redrawn until each school came in as close as was possible to 450 kids.

"so Slater/Vargas and Bullis are excellent"

Since Vargas is a new school and fully controlled by the MVWSD, I would assume it will perform just as well as our other normal public schools, but as with other public schools, the school performance will depend mainly on the educational background of the kids parents.

Bullis is very different and the MVWSD has very little control over anything about how Bullis operates, so nobody can predict how it will perform, but I would bet the educational backgrounds of the parents of the kids who go to Bullis will predict the results.

"and needed options for thus neighborhood."

Vargas is in and for the Whisman/Slater neighborhood, Bullis is a district-wide choice school and the parents who have singed-up with interest in Bullis are scattered around the entire MVWSD. Most likely Bullis will enroll kids of well-educated parents and thus Bullis will perform about the same as Stevenson or Huff.

"Stop blaming these new schools for fiscal problems"

Vargas was built by a $40million construction loan taken out by the MVWSD because the Measure G funds were not enough to get all the needed facilities work done. Building Vargas cost more than any other elementary school, but because the District Office cleverly figured out how to make it all work out, Vargas did NOT cause the fiscal problems people are talking about. Vargas was built with restricted-use money which could not be used for general operations.

In any case, Bullis will cause significant financial difficulties that the MVWSD will have to figure out how to cope with. We can't even properly predict how big the hit will be until we know what percentage of the kids are in the "Free/Reduced Lunch Program". Bullis claims 40%, but nobody really thinks Bullis will get even 10%.

"largely stemming from inefficient union costs"

If you get rid of the Teachers Union and collective bargaining, you can certainly bring down costs, but we have a hard enough time getting teachers for our public schools as it is, where are teachers going to come from? Public school teachers are already underpaid and over worked.

"and special program spending...."

Special programs are mainly the result of the public perception that the "achievement gap" is caused by bad schools and thus it can be "solved" by making the schools "better" with targeted programs.

The truth is that the "achievement gap" is caused by factors in the home and cannot be solved in the schools. At most the schools can reduce the gap. Change public perception and you remove the pressure for expensive special programs.