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Published on 03/22/1999 All articles from this issue

Boundary discussions prompt parent concerns

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By Linda Taaffe / Town Crier Staff Writer

The Los Altos School District's plan to re-configure school boundaries to keep student population below 500 at each of its elementary schools has some parents worried. They are concerned about their children's daily commute and the impact on school programs.

Families living within the current Almond School boundaries are concerned that new boundaries could send their children to school sites farther from their homes and on the other side of busy intersections.

Marilyn Lerner, who lives on Azalea Way, which borders East Edith Avenue behind Almond School, said, "I can watch my child walk to school from my window in the mornings." She said she is concerned that after the boundary changes, she may not be able to do that.

"We're all going to have to make some sacrifices," said parent Nanette Freedland, who is a member of the district's Long Range Planning Committee. "I think parents at Almond are under a lot of distress. They got caught off-guard. It's just not possible for every child at Almond to stay at Almond."

She said Almond students could be moved to Covington, Santa Rita and Springer schools.

Santa Rita parents say boundary changes could impact the level of parent participation if too many families living south of El Camino Real, where parent participation is high, are sent elsewhere. The school's current boundaries includes students from the Crossings residential development in Mountain View.

Parents said they would rather have a larger school than a smaller one with a lot of economic disparity.

"Let's apply a test of reasonableness to the process," said one parent during a boundary committee meeting March 18 at the district board room.

School officials say boundary changes are key to keeping student population down and to maintain the quality of its academic programs.

The district formed a boundaries committee at the start of this year to formulate a plan that would redistribute student populations when Covington School is reopened as the district's seventh elementary school in 2001.

The committee developed the following criteria, ranked in the order of importance, that members will follow when deciding on new boundaries: have as many children as possible attend their closest school; keep neighborhoods tighter; avoid crossing major streets; keep diverseness of student population balanced; allow as many children as possible to walk to school; avoid potential traffic problems; keep boundaries contiguous.

Working with demographer Jeanne Gobalet, committee members were looking at ways to combine small, neighborhood pockets with larger configurations starting from the north and working their way south - a process Freedland called, "squeezing the toothpaste out."

Freedland said working from this north-south scenario, it would be possible to keep schools under the committee's target population of 490 per school, with the highest population at 465 at Santa Rita in 2002 and the lowest population at 285 at Bullis-Purissima School in 2002. The boundaries for Oak School would probably remain unchanged under this scenario.

"I always thought it would be more difficult to close a school than to open a new one. Now, I don't know," said Superintendent Marge Gratiot.

Committee members said they hoped to make a formal recommendation to the board of trustees by this coming May.