Schools

Bullis Charter School Offer: 11 Acres, 2 Campuses

The Los Altos School District district's final offer expands the acreage and shared space, across two campuses, Egan Jr. High School and Blach Intermediate School.

board members cast a critical eye at the final facilities offer from the Monday night, during its first briefing of document that was delivered over the weekend.  

The offer adds space but falls short of what the charter school had asked for in its request—a ten-acre campus—but BCS board chairman Ken Moore, clearly underwhelmed by the offer, was restrained in his reaction, saying it was best not to comment much. 

The district, like all districts in California, is mandated to make a final offer for facilities by April 1. It offered a 7.67-acre space at and 3.37-acre space at , for a combined total of 11.04 acres. Currently, BCS grades K-8 occupies a 6.23 acres on the Egan campus.

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Twenty-five percent of students in the elementary schools of LASD live in Mountain View. However, none attend the junior high schools, which would be impacted under the final offer. But some attend Bullis Charter School.

BCS Board members Janet Medlin and Andrea Eyre walked through initial overview offer, spotting some problem areas and highlighting concerns.

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After walking the grounds over the weekend and looking at the proposal, Eyre said there's too little room at the Egan campus and too much room at the Blach campus. 

"They’re giving 27 kids a ton of acreage and K-6 kids not enough," she said.

And there would be logistical issues that would require transportation for students that would be better spent learning.  

Some of the space offered is configured in such a round-about and awkward way that Eyre wondered how kindergarteners would get to the bathroom if they were using the expanded facilities.

The devil, of course, is in the details, and the pair resisted making too many conclusions. Pointing to the thick, blue folder containing all the documents, Eyre said they still they would have to study the 37-page offer letter, 11-page agreement document, and supporting exhibits spanning more than 180 pages.

They have several questions for Assistant Superintendent Randall Kenyon, who prepared the offer.

Medlin said it reminded her of years' past facilities offers. "Same behavior, different numbers," she said, tartly.

The district said it was addressing the Prop. 39 requirement of charter schools' facilties to be "reasonably equivalent" to the other public school students' facilities by expanding upon the space and quality of the facilities at both two campuses for Bullis' exclusive use. In some aspects, BCS facilities would be superior to that used by district students, the district said.

The offer also calls for childcare facilities for BCS, similar to those found on other LASD campuses, to be placed on the BCS campus. 

The school does not restrict BCS students at any grade level from using either campus, except for shared speciaized teaching space at Egan.

More detail can be found on the .pdf attached to this story. Patch has contacted BCS for comment, and will update as it new information becomes available. 

Additional reporting by Claudia Cruz.

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