I will gladly back a bond measure that directly supports on site activities and education rather than district office garbage ONLY IF the board members will finally step up and get rid of the current failure of a superintendent and his cronies. No idea how he has lasted this long after controversy after controversy and constant misuse of district funds. We need LEADERSHIP!!

Remind me. How many school sites is this School District leasing out long-term for more spending money?

Not another dime until Superintendent Rudolph and Assistant Superintendent Ghysels are long gone. They have ship wrecked this district. Send them packing now, and vote out of office any board member incumbents in the next election.

Didn't we just do this? I think I'm still paying for the last one. How about a tax that lets everyone contribute, not just homeowners. I keep hearing Mountain View is majority renters who presumably send their kids to the public schools just like homeowners do. Why are homeowners having to contribute all the additional financial support always? Try a sales tax instead of a parcel tax for once.

I wish that the district would spend more money on classroom programs and improving school performance rather than building. Stevenson is the most popular school in the district despite consistently having the worst facilities. This indicates that parents care more about programs and performance than buildings, yet here we are.

@CX

"I wish that the district would spend more money on classroom programs and improving school performance rather than building."

If you're worried about the "achievement gap", sorry to tell you it cannot be "solved" by throwing money at the problem. Solving that requires solutions nobody has been able to implement and prove anywhere in the USA.

However, many things can be done with money to improve the overall long-term performance of our students. The problem is that politics matters more than methods that actually can help each student rise towards their personal best achievement.

The money the district gets has rules about how it may be spent.
The Measure G school facilities bond was specifically required to be spent on building better facilities. The district could NOT spend that money for other things. Besides, every school facility in the district desperately needed rebuilding and everyone knew it.

General fund money from Parcel Taxes or rentals of district owned property is what you are talking about or sometimes certain grants from companies like Google. That money can be spent on classroom programs.

"Stevenson is the most popular school in the district despite consistently having the worst facilities."

That "worst facilities" part was true from the re-opening of Stevenson in 2009 until last year when the pre-fab "modular" Stevenson was opened. Stevenson was built from obsolete portables and an even worse 1964 screwy octagon building that was badly designed and poorly maintained.

It was only early in 2019 that the Stevenson MUR was finally open and there are some electrical and water problems at Stevenson still.

Having said that, today the new school, Vargas, over on Whisman, is the worst school facilities, but that's mainly temporary problems and the basic small size of the site.

"This indicates that parents care more about programs and performance than buildings, yet here we are. "

Sure, but parents are NOT the ONLY voters or tax-payers. Parents may feel they have the greatest stake in the issue, but all of us benefit from having better schools by all measures. Better schools makes for higher home values for example. Just to be crass.

@ Again?

"Didn't we just do this?"

Yes. We home owners and all land owners are still paying one or more old parcel taxes to the schools.

"How about a tax that lets everyone contribute, not just homeowners."

I think you meant "requires" not "lets", right?

And remembers, all types of land-owners pay parcel taxes.
Some residents can apply for relief from these taxes, the elderly for example and we have quite a few of those.

"I keep hearing Mountain View is majority renters who presumably send their kids to the public schools just like homeowners do."

Indeed, but under California state laws, the owners of the land those renters live on already pay the parcel taxes that apply. So, indirectly, renters do pay parcel taxes through their rent.

"Why are homeowners having to contribute all the additional financial support always?"

Land owners, not just home owners.

"Try a sales tax instead of a parcel tax for once."

Complain to your state law-makers to change the state law, NOT to the school district that is highly restricted in how they may raise money and what they may spend it on.

@Jake

"Remind me. How many school sites is this School District leasing out long-term for more spending money?"

Well, here you go:
Whisman is being leased to the German and Chinese private schools.
Slater is being leased to Google for an employee day care/pre-school center.
Cooper is being leased to a private pre-school.
Sylvan Park.... I cant' recall the details of that little one.

And there is currently a set of old yellow portables (re-purposed from the old Stevenson) that are possibly going to be rented if the district can't find and fund a better purpose for those buildings.

I hope that helps.

Wonderful news to hear of the bond, funding public schools is an investment for any property owner. MVWSD continues to receive less property funded support (parcel & bonds) than next door school districts. If one wants to change the school board, there are board elections to do that. Starving a district of funds is an ineffective way to express that concern and makes the district less attractive to talent (no one wants to work at a starving institution), and most importantly, hurts students more than adults.

While ideally, the bond should have been pursued two years ago before lease revenue and Certificates of Participation (which functions the same as general revenue) were used to re-direct general revenue towards construction, it's not too late to fix that mistake.

First step is for it to acknowledge the Certificates of Participation ($2 plus million a year of lost general revenue) was indeed a mistake (they should have made a case to the community for a bond back then rather than seek short term high-cost exotic funding mechanisms). Web Link

Next step could be to pursue solar energy and smart energy systems (like those that will stop air conditioners from running all weekend and holidays), to bring in a few hundred thousand more that can then properly fund the enrichment activities across the district that are always starving of funds despite being such a small part of the overall budget. Make an exciting case for green energy by landing matching donations from local companies to promote green energy education and facility investments.

Lets make this next bond about making immediate investments to free up general revenue (a recession is bound to happen eventually and Silicon Valley enrollment is dropping Web Link ). It's not time to bankroll for more future TBD buildings (if and when a North Bayshore neighborhood is built, a joint effort with MVLA can be pursued years from now).

And hopefully, the school board will finally properly fund amazing inspiring and wondrous playgrounds at every campus, rather than provisioning them as a last-place afterthought, they are such a small part of the facilities budget but have been shortchanged. This bond can be exciting if they have the vision and willingness to do the hard work to make it so.

I’m Sorry, NO!

I will also gladly support a bond vote for this district when the Sup (Rudolph) and head of HR (Ghysels) are replaced. Last year the Sup collected his 5% raise along with the teachers, then he was awarded in June an additional 14% raise by our trustees. This brought his total earnings to a cool 281K - higher than the Sup of LASD (who earns 255K and has lead that district for about 10 years). This all followed on the heals of the Sup and HR Admin, recommending to the board to fire classified positions. They proposed firing all the librarians in the entire district, some custodial positions and did succeed in firing At Risk Counselors, School Facility Engagement Facilitators, bus drivers and cutting the entire district summer school program. If it weren’t for the public outrage to all this, there surely would have been more cuts to jobs and/or hours. The Sup and the board have shown us what they think -the people on the front lines who actually touch students lives directly are expendable while the salaries of the top management are not. Their actions speak loudly.

Let’s look at a list of district fiascos (that I can remember) so far:

- wasted funds on a failed math program “Teach to One” with a cost of $500K
- board agreed to pay an "executive coach" to help the Sup when he was hired at a cost of 87K each year
- the Sup hired a district spokesperson so he would not have to communicate with the media
- 4 district principals dropped at once in 2017
- Sup hires a principal for Vargas (Jones) a year in advance of the school opening who collected his salary & then promptly quit as the school was preparing to open.
- terminated the contract of previous CFO (Robert Clark) with a cool 6 months payout to the tune of about $103K
- promoted a principal (Westover) with absolutely no financial experience as MVWSD CFO at full experienced salary of $200K and provided a coach(contractor) for her for at an additional cost of $95K
- poorly managed and rushed the opening of Vargas School resulting in $35K expense for a gas generator each month (funded from a bond fund)
- lawsuits against the district due to poor handling by HR of a predatory teacher that was shifted around from school to school
- awarded the Sup Ayinde Rudolph a 14% raise in addition to his already 5% raise for a total of $281,477 with additional perks. In the last 4 years his salary has been raised by $81K (over 40%).

In examining the expenditures of the last bond fund, the district did not support all the specifics it promised to fund. I question when was the last bond oversight meeting??

Sorry, as a resident of MV, I will no longer support throwing anymore money to this district until they “clean house” at the top - starting with the Sup and the head of HR. The buck stops there!

I'm for it.