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Published on 08/28/1995 All articles from this issue

Competing in the classroom

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Los Altos public schools address concerns of declining education

She bubbles with enthusiasm when she talks about schools in Los Altos, particularly Loyola School where her daughter will be a second grader.

"Alison comes home with the sheer joy of learning. What I've seen in kindergarten and first grade is fabulous," said Margot Harrigan, president of the Loyola PTA for 1995-96.

Schools were not a factor for the Harrigans when they moved to Los Altos from Menlo Park in 1992 because, "I was thinking Catholic," Harrigan said. She attended parochial schools until college.

"But I decided I wanted my child to interact with a culturally diverse population. I probably didn't know Hanukah existed until college."

The strong parent involvement at Loyola impressed her, too, "the can-do opportunity and the can-do spirit. That's when I became a joiner," Harrigan said.

School in Los Altos opens today.

In the high schools 2,700 to 2,800 students, about the same enrollment as last year, head back to Mountain View and Los Altos high schools, in the Mountain View/Los Altos Union High School District, said Don Phillips, superintendent.

Today is the first day for approximately 3,503 pupils enrolled this fall in the K-8 Los Altos School District, said Marge Gratiot, superintendent. The schools in this district include Blach and Egan, seventh and eighth grade schools, and six kindergarten through sixth grade schools: Almond, Bullis-Purissima, Loyola, Oak Avenue, Santa Rita and Springer.

"Our biggest news is that we have 200 more students than last year and 24 new teachers, which is eight more than last year," Gratiot said.

Forty-eight of those new 200 students are kindergarten students. So the district has added two more kindergarten classes, one at Almond and one at Loyola.

Not all parents share Harrigan's excitement. Lew Platt, Hewlett-Packard's chairman and CEO, Los Altos resident since 1980 and father of four who have gone through the Los Altos schools, wouldn't do it again.

"I'd send my children to private school, especially junior high and high school. It's important to provide the best for your kids, and I wouldn't take the risk today" with the public schools, Platt said. His youngest graduated from Los Altos High School and is a junior at Yale.

At the same time, Platt affirms he is a strong proponent of public education, a booster of Los Altos schools.

"I spend one to one and a half days a month working for the school system in Los Altos," he said. "I put a lot of my personal time and money into rebuilding the schools."

As a business person, he is concerned about the schools. "It's no longer a drawing card to bring people here," Platt said.

It's expensive to live here. "When I came in 1980, at least you could say the schools were the best. Now, when I interview people, and they say they must send their kids to private school, that's the straw that breaks the camel's back. They say, 'I can't afford it.' And they stay put."

Platt's specific concerns about Los Altos schools include scores, the physical condition of the schools, "the things we've had to cut out like art and music, and the technology in the classrooms. We have some of the worst in the nation here," he said.

Phillips agrees with Platt about the need for more technology in the classroom.

In fact, the high school district has added a third assistant superintendent this fall who will be the "point person for technology," Phillips said.

Steve Hope, who has been principal of Mountain View High School for four years, is moving to the district office to fill this post.

"It's essential that the schools catch up with technology out in the world," Hope said. He will be designing a vision for the district for technology in the curriculum, for technology skills students will need.

The high school facilities will be improved with the $58 million Measure D bond money which was approved in June.

"Now we've passed it, we need to build it," Phillips said. "We need to make sure the design fits the educational needs - an awesome responsibility to do it right."

For Kit Cosgriff, the new principal at Loyola School, a school is the people and the programs.

"It isn't the building," Cosgriff said, "it's what happens in those rooms. Buildings are not a critical factor in learning."

Cosgriff just finished a master's degree at Stanford in the prospective principals' program. Marge Gratiot got a call from her doctorate advisor at Stanford, Edwin Bridges, who said, "'Cosgriff's the best person I ever saw go through this program - and I gave her your name,'" Gratiot said.

A goal of the Stanford program is to train administrators who will create a joyful and humane learning environment. "And that is happening here," Cosgriff said. "The Los Altos district is truly the model of this kind of environment."

The high school environment is another story. In the early 90s the police were on the campus every day, there was some gang activity, Phillips said. Parents like Lew Platt worried about their kids.

"An enormous amount of school energy was spent just keeping the kids safe," Platt said.

Phillips agreed. "We worked on maintaining the safety of the campus. You need that in place for the students to learn," he said. Both Platt and Phillips say the problems are under control now.

"We have a long way to go to call it a world class system," Platt said. "But that causes me to put my energy into trying to fix it - so maybe it's not all bad that I feel this way."

Phillips is proud of his two high schools. The trend line for SAT scores has consistently gone up over the past ten years, he said, "and more kids are taking the test."

Two students from Los Altos High scored a perfect 1600 score last spring. "We checked with the Educational Testing Service," Phillips said, and "they can't remember when they ever had two students from the same high school earning perfect scores.

"Can we get better? Clearly, yes. And that's what we're about."