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Published on 09/01/1999 All articles from this issue

Mountain View and Whisman school districts discuss merging - again

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By Linda Taaffe / Town Crier Staff Writer

Schools Roundup

LA resident named Fulbright Scholar

Dwindling enrollments have recently raised the recurring question of whether to merge Mountain View and Whisman school districts. The Mountain View School District Board of Trustees was scheduled to further discuss the possibility of a merger Monday night. This discussion comes after a joint meeting between officials from both districts last June to reevaluate the pros and cons of combining the districts.

Patricia Bubenik, superintendent of the Mountain View School District, said this week's meeting would be a basic step in the process of reassessing some key questions of a possible merger.

"Everything being discussed are issues that have already been raised in the past," Bubenik said.

Although talk of combining the two districts has continued in recent years, Bubenik said both districts have recently completed long-term strategic plans, which brought the issue to the forefront again.

Both districts have reported dropping enrollments over the past five years. The enrollment at Mountain View, which opened a sixth elementary school last year, has remained relatively flat with about 3,150 students expected for this school year, Bubenik said.

School officials attribute low enrollment to the area's skyrocketing housing market, which has pushed many families out of Mountain View. Fewer students means less district funding for Whisman and Mountain View, which are revenue-limit districts and receive state funding on a per student basis. Basic aid districts, such as the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, receive funding set by local property tax values.

A merger could generate more funds by increasing enrollment and eliminating some administrative positions. If Whisman and Mountain View combine, the district would include two middle schools and seven elementary schools.

Bubenik said she didn't expect a decision anytime soon.

Elisabeth Oxfeldt, daughter of Poul and Inger Oxfeldt of Los Altos, was recently awarded a J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship to conduct research in the field of literature in Denmark over the next academic year. Only 2,000 grantees nationwide were chosen to travel abroad this year through the Fulbright program - an educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency, an independent foreign affairs agency within the executive branch of the federal government.

Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright established the program in 1946 to increase cultural awareness worldwide.

Oxfeldt, who is now in Denmark, will conduct research for her dissertation on Orientalism in 19th-century Danish literature over the next year. Oxfeldt said, through Danish literary texts, she hopes to focus her research on how the Danes perceived the East, represented it and used it to define their own national identity.

She said her interest in this topic stemmed from current problems in Denmark with immigrants - many from Turkey - who are viewed as intolerable and a threat to Danish national identity, even though the Danish identity has been influenced and shaped by the Oriental culture.

Oxfeldt is a 1984 Gold Seal graduate of Los Altos High School. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in French and literature and minoring in business administration. She enrolled in graduate school in 1995 at Berkeley's Scandinavian Department with a focus on Norwegian and Danish literature.