BCS is very good at public relations

At least, if money spent is any indicator, they must be. Did you ever notice that whenever LASD wins a judge's assessment (or BCS loses one), we usually find out through word of mouth or from Doug's blog. But, when BCS wins (or, in this case, when LASD loses) BCS issues formal press releases, etc. I guess we can at least be thankful that this press release, at least, didn't come from that sexist guy again :)

Well, anyway, it sounds like the judge has ruled against LASD in their request to site BCS outside the district (but within the county), since they are chartered by the county. So, what do we know at this point?

- The the county board (SCCBOE) approved BCS' charter after LASD didn't, effectively making BCS LASD's problem.

- This same county board seemed to acknowledge their responsibility in the unrest that exists within Los Altos, and surrounding communities, and seemed to indicate that if things didn't change, that they might not vote the same way at the next renewal. 

- LASD is very pressed for land, and has been looking for a suitable site for BCS within its boundaries for 10 years. 

- LASD also has responsibility for a section of mountain view, known as NEC (or north of El Camino), and mountain view hasn't offered up a school site, thus influencing many people to choose the "local school" - BCS.

- LASD closed the only LASD school in the hills (bullis) 10+ years ago, which led to the formation of the charter because the folks in the hills felt slighted and unrepresented. 

- So it sounds like LASD is between a rock and a hard place, and a hard place...

I don't envy the board, and I hope that cooler heads prevail through these mediated discussions (assuming BCS doesn't cancel again, since its been over 2 weeks since the last chat), but I fear that this latest ruling may just embolden the most aggressive BCS stalwarts.

Here's to wishful thinking...

Another disappointing night...

This time, it wasn't even brought on by BCS, actually, the opposite - it was my inability to hear the LASD/BCS mediation tonight. I was surprised that I couldn't easily find a webcast of the meeting, so I took my kids directly from softball, gave them some quesadillas to go, and we headed over to Los Altos Hills to find out how I could listen/watch the live webcast. Despite the fact that there were two people videotaping (with big, official looking cameras), I was told that a video would be available after the weekend :(

Anyway, while my kids were downing their food, I only got to hear:

- BCS parent saying to LASD that she would only support a bond if she knew that it would help BCS.  The mayor cut her off at some point. 

- Then the mayor asked both sides to issue a statement, a request for which neither of them seemed prepared

Unfortunately, I needed to head home with the kids at this point, but hopefully we'll hear an account from someone who was present...

Many thanks to Mayor Waldeck

It's a long watch (about 90 minutes), but Mr. Waldeck did a great job of clarifying and facilitating the conversation between Doug Smith/Tammy Logan & Peter Evans/Francis La Poll.  Thanks to Doug for posting the video of last night's session at http://www.lasdschools.org/District/News/6167-LASD-BCS-Sub-Committee-Meeting-Videos.html:


I was told by someone who attended the meeting last night that it was civil, and there weren't many disputes.  My perspective after watching this is a bit different.  At the 10k ft level, it sounded to me like LASD was saying "We need to come up with a solution that will work for the community as a whole (parents, singles, elderly, etc)" and BCS kept saying "We want some security that if we work with you, that you will not threaten the existence of our school".  Both are eminently reasonable positions, but unfortunately one appears to be a bit more narcissistic than the other.

There was a bit of pulling hairs, but it sounds like the next meeting will be on the 16th.  Be there, or be square... :)

More thanks to Mayor Waldeck

I continue to be impressed with his level-headedness, and his ability to listen to, and actually 'hear', both sides of the story. I can see that his years of program management experience are being put to good use.  In regards to the specifics of last night's meeting, it started with a proposal from Doug (LASD) - would BCS be willing to waive their attendance preferences for folks from the hills?  The rationale for his request was:

- if, we are trying to appeal to the broader los altos community, who would be paying for the additional parcel tax

- because, Bullis Purrissma (the LASD elementary school that was closed for renovation 10+ years ago, a closure that caused the rationale for the creation of the charter school - if you doubt this at all, listen to Francis La Poll for a few minutes, and you won't) has been reopened for many years, so the kids in the hills do have a local LASD school again

- then, by waiving the preference, it would show that BCS is actually trying to appeal to the broader community more than it is trying to cherry pick the easiest students

This seemingly innocuous suggestion devolved into into a disappointing meeting including such gems as:

- Francis saying that BCS actually does a "better job" with special needs kids, because they mainstream all of them (I honestly don't know whether this comment is just intended to be misleading, or just ignorant, but if anyone doesn't think that BCS is even creaming the special needs children by taking those who can excel while "discouraging"  those who require more help and score lower on tests, then that person is just not paying attention)

- Doug quoted numbers from BCS' chartering agency that said that LASD has 12.9% ELL (English Language Learners) while BCS has 1.8%. Hmm, this doesn't seem to be a representative slice?!?  Again, I'm not sure if the BCS representatives were trying to be misleading, but they kept quoting that they have a larger number of ELL in their latest kinder (I think that the number was 16 or 20 - I wonder how many are Hispanic, and how many are children of PHD students at Stanford?!?) as if this number was "larger " than 12.9, an incongruous statement of comparing a raw number with a percentage. 

The consistency with which BCS representatives make misleading statements, either intentionally or ignorantly, is staggering.

Abbott and Costello would be proud...

Kudos to the team for exhibiting patience

When Mr La Poll clearly, and repeatedly, stated that these public discussions were fruitless, and that they should be meeting behind closed doors, I thought that the meeting would end right there.  I appreciate the efforts of Mayor Waldeck, Doug, Tammy, and Peter to override Francis' cynicism and attempts to derail any discussion. Frankly, the fact that the group seemed to achieve a mild consensus that holding the BCS attendance at current levels, vs continuing to grow and stress the facilities and neighborhoods, could actually be beneficial to passing a bond, was a minor miracle. After hearing Mr La Poll's comments about the fact that they don't want LASD involved in their stuff, as Doug and Tammy kept pressing in order to learn (you know, kind of like the spirit of the law to innovate and share successes), combined with his desire, nay, insistence, to have these discussions behind closed doors left me with only one conclusion - BCS (or at least Francis' vision of it) is NOT a public school. I'm not sure if this vision is shared by BCS' other board members, but I was impressed/surprised with his frankness in underscoring this fact tonight. Ironically, they could have self sited anytime in the last 10 years, or now, but then what could they sue LASD for...

Another board meeting night, another board meeting conflict...

In honor of Mr La Poll's attitude during the last Long Term Facilities discussion, I thought that this gif was apropos...

I'm not sure how this came to be, because I remember the LASD and BCS boards attempting to arrange their meetings to NOT conflict, but somehow they are again at the same day/time, so interested attendees had the option of choosing one meeting or the other. I believe that many folks attended the BCS board meeting, so I look forward to hearing about their board's unprofessional antics, but I choose to take my stress level down one notch and attend the LASD board meeting. After some great discussion about what was going on with STEM in the district, we got to the BCS portion of the agenda (always a highlight). I was quite surprised to hear one BCS parent stand up and lament the fact that her kids are in portables and don't have a cafeteria. Other than the fact that most of the kids in LASD are in the same boat (I know that mine at Oak are), we really need to get past these petty arguments/complaints about facilities, and the two boards need to reach an agreement. I was cautiously optimistic when there were two sets of board discussions going on simultaneously (one about short term facilities needs of BCS - i.e. younger kids at Blach, more flexibility to have their whole student body on one site more often, etc AND one about longer a longer term facilities agreement that would hopefully end this prop 39 groundhog day that we have all been suffering through). Unfortunately, the short term meetings appear to be awaiting BCS to respond with some data, and the long term meetings seem to be waiting for Mr La Poll to return in a couple of weeks. Given the fact that our progress seemed to be tenuous, at best, the lack of progress towards the end of last week and presumably this week is disheartening. Hopefully, people will take the high road, and agree to meet in public to hash things out. Otherwise, the prop 39 clock is ticking, and this may all be for naught this year :( At the LASD board meeting we did have another interesting discussion, about full-day kinder. I was actually excited, since I have an incoming kinder next year, but I was surprised at the number of parents who were against it. Hopefully the board can come up with a plan to meet the needs of both parents who want "less kinder, more play" for their kids, and those who are already exposing their kids to more schooling in preschool than LASD kinder is offering, and consider a half-day kinder to be a step back. Not saying that either side is right or wrong, but I do hope that the LASD board can come up with a plan to help everyone.

And like that, he's gone...

Borrowing a Great line from a Great movie, I can't help but feel like Keyser Soze... As excited as we all were that these discussions were happening in a public forum, I assume that we are equally disappointed that they seem to have ended. I sincerely hope that BCS will come back to the table and be willing to meet in public again.  I guess it has given me the opportunity/time to go back through the public comments from past meetings in order to better understand people's perspectives. My original intention was to be able to better understand the fact that Mr Radford approached me after the last meeting saying that I had misrepresented him. Since I am easily confused these days, I wanted to go back through and re-watch his points. I have posted my comment here, followed by his comment on the same day which precipitated it, as well as two other comments that he has made during these public sessions. I'll leave it to you to make your own decisions regarding his message and intention, but I would like to publicly apologize to him if I misunderstood and/or misrepresented his message. Without further ado, here are the 4 video snippets, in their entirety:
What I said:

What Mr Radford said a few minutes earlier (which precipitated me getting up):

What Mr Radford said at a meeting a few days earlier:

(first comment, and reminds me a bit of when someone says "don't take this the wrong way...", and you know that they're going to rip you after that, as if preliminary statement softens their eventual statement)

And the day before:

(Lockout hurt chances for a bond issue, as if nothing precipitated it)

Comments from BCS Families

In attempting to find Mr Radford's comments, because he was concerned that I misrepresented him with mine, I ended up going through all of the public comments.  I have broken them into three posts:
1. Comments from BCS Families
2. Comments from LASD Parents
3. Comments from community members (without students in BCS or LASD)
I have found the public comments to be quite enlightening, so enjoy...
This first post is the comments from BCS Families.

You need Flash player 10.1 (or higher) and JavaScript enabled to view this video.

Comments from Community Members (without students in LASD or BCS)

In attempting to find Mr Radford's comments, because he was concerned that I misrepresented him with mine, I ended up going through all of the public comments.  I have broken them into three posts:
1. Comments from BCS Parents
2. Comments from LASD Parents
3. Comments from community members (without students in BCS or LASD) - my assumption is based upon whether or not they said that they have kids in their introduction
I have found the public comments to be quite enlightening, so enjoy...

You need Flash player 10.1 (or higher) and JavaScript enabled to view this video.

Comments from LASD Parents

In attempting to find Mr Radford's comments, because he was concerned that I misrepresented him with mine, I ended up going through all of the public comments.  I have broken them into three posts:
1. Comments from BCS Families
2. Comments from LASD Families
3. Comments from community members (without students in BCS or LASD)
I have found the public comments to be quite enlightening, so enjoy...

You need Flash player 10.1 (or higher) and JavaScript enabled to view this video.