Why am I Fru-strated

My wife and I LOVED our house(s) in downtown Mountain View. She was "The girl next door". I was the "peeping Tom" (ironically, she was the one who noted that you could see into her house from mine, I hadn't even noticed, but I needed a nickname). We walked our dog all around the neighborhood. We walked downtown to meet friends, or to get a bite to eat. Our daughter was born in a beautiful home birth in our own bathtub. We loved everything, UNTIL I started to look into schools, and found out that we were in "worst performing (according to API), by a large margin, elementary school district in the area - Castro". NOTE: I believe that this school has continued to improve, like the rest of the neighborhood, but I was not patient enough to wait. Despite the fact that we loved our location, we decided to sell our two houses and set up roots in a great family-oriented neighborhood with a wonderful neighborhood school system (LASD). Unfortunately, at the time, I didn't know anything about the brewing "battle over bullis". I still remember biking with my daughter to her first day of kindergarten. I've enjoyed volunteering at the school when I am able, and getting a chance to meet her classmates and their families. The environment was the epitome of what I had dreamt for my family, EXCEPT for the ongoing lawsuits against the district from the charter school. Now, don't get me wrong. I voted for charter schools, because I envisioned them as a viable alternative for what I saw as some failing public schools. I still believe that some solution is needed to improve the educational opportunities for those less fortunate. BUT, I am 100% against a charter school that was founded out of spite (mistaken, in hindsight, closing of last public school in the hills), and I believe is being used to further political motivations (fight labor unions, republicans vs democrats, etc) AND/OR offer a government subsidized private education to the wealthy. I was surprised when I met some neighbors who are attending Pinewood, because I felt like I had just invested my whole life savings to move into a house in LASD, but now I respect those people's decisions more than ever. I think that I agree with the "concept" of school choice, but in my world, choice costs money. When I grew up, we all had "choice" - we could attend our local public school, or pay to attend any number of private, catholic, etc schools. Now, before you envision a wealthy environment like our own, I grew up with a single, full-time working mother, and we lived in the same small two bedroom apartment for 20+ years. We didn't really have any choices, but you know what, we were happy. That brings me back to our situation here in Los Altos. It seems such a travesty to me that we are fighting these battles between LASD and BCS when EVERY person in this fight absolutely has access to an excellent, free public education, something that many in our country do not have access. Maybe, someday, we can focus our efforts and energy on fixing a real problem, liking helping kids who truly lack a viable education.

Are School, Zip Code, & City Snobbery the same thing?

One would think that growing up in suburban Philly, I would be eminently familiar with the concept of Zip Code Snobbery, which emanated a couple of hours away from me in lovely NYC.  I wasn't exactly living in the hood, although I did get sucker punched one time at the local mall because the guy wanted to rob me (funny story for another day).  Ironically, it took me to move all of the way across the country to California before I experienced snobbery.  I knew that there was the "rich" school in our district when I was young, but that was mostly because they had bigger houses (or any houses at all) and their baseball/basketball/football teams dwarfed ours in size, but I guess that I was lucky to grow up not longing for what other people had.  I was happy with anything that my mother was able to provide for me, and I was extremely happy later in life when I was able to buy her a house and repay a fraction of what she had given me over the years.  Yet here, we seem to have so much, and never enough.

We have the best public school district that I have ever seen (LASD), yet we have a long line of people looking for something more.  This in and of itself is not the problem, because there are MANY fine private options in the area that offer hosts of cool features and great people.  BUT, even then, people want more, or maybe I should say, they want “less” (tuition than private, class sizes than LASD, diversity slowing the progression of their children, etc).  So fine, the law says that you can do it, so create a different type of school and call it a charter.  Take some funds, but not all of them, follow some rules, but not all of them, but WHY keep suing our district?  Many charter schools choose to self-site, and if you can point to any of those who have more financial wherewithal than the founders of BCS, I’d love to meet them.    Then again, maybe not…
If 10 years of fruitless looking has proven anything, it has shown that it is difficult to find available land within LASD's boundaries.  So maybe it really is time to think "outside of the box".  BCS was chartered by SCCBOE (i.e. a body serving more than Los Altos Hills).  BCS is attended by people from (at least) Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, and Mountain View, but I'm sure some more too, maybe even including Sunnyvale?!?  If BCS won't decide to self site and build a spankin new, world class shrine to intelligence and riches, I think that the Raynor site in Sunnyvale could be a great, easily accessible location to build a wonderful SCCBOE Charter School - you can even keep the name BCS :)

Summer Must be Over

Fortunately, the weather around here rarely changes, but I can tell that summer is over because I just wasted 2 hours of my life at another pointless BCS/LASD board meeting.  This time, it was the BCS board meeting, which I had been anticipating attending since last week.  The "plan", was for some members of the growth task force to jointly present their findings, and discuss how we can all work together.  Ironic, given what transpired.

Luckily, I found out about the last minute change in venue before I left my house, but UNFORTUNATELY, the change in venue occurred too late for the LASD board members to attend because they had to adhere to their publicly committed venue due to the Brown act.  Where did this leave us?  With just enough time to listen and learn the following:

• Apparently, LASD has locked BCS out of the new rooms at Blach until the facilities agreement is signed.  Unfortunately, this is preventing teachers from preparing for a successful start to the year, which is not what anyone wants.
• I don't know why the agreement is needed now, and wasn't before.  I also don't know why it hasn't been signed.  Basically, I don't know anything about it.
• I don't know why BCS moved the venue of this board meeting, but it had the unfortunate effect of spiraling a once promising collaborative meeting out of control into a useless waste of time
• Joe H was visibly upset with Doug for his lack of collaboration on this matter, which is quite unfortunate since they had appeared to develop a mutually respectful relationship up to this point
• No presence of LASD, including Jeff B, the board, etc, so none of the planned agenda items were discussed in the open session
• There seemed to be some discussion about a nice program that BCS held for low income students, but unfortunately I missed most of it because I had to step outside in my disgust at both board's behaviors

All around, a colossal waste of time for all.  We can count this as the "two steps back" portion of our "one step forward" dance... :(

From Lenin to Lennon

Hmm, never knew that the old "one step forward, two steps back" was a Vladimir Lenin quote?!?  While I'm on that trajectory, I'll borrow some wise words from a different Lennon - "Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one."  I, too, hope that we will all put down our differences, and work together in the best interests of educating ALL of our children, not just those biologically related to us.

I now understand a little bit more about what transpired in the meeting yesterday, and I'm disappointed to say that it sounds like the fact that the BCS teachers are "locked out of the new Blach facilities" seems to be caused by BCS' unwillingness to sign the document stipulating the agreement around the facilities use agreement (FUA).  Without the signed agreement, furnishing access seems like it would be a bit of putting the cart before the horse - especially, since one side seems to have a particularly itchy legal trigger finger.  Hopefully, the lawyers can work faster than the marketers, and we can sign the agreement and move forward on another fun filled year of edu-leg-cat-al-ion...

MOUs, FUAs, TLAs, oh my...

Sorry for my Freudian slip of the finger, but it sounds like the dispute is over whether or not BCS will sign the FUA (Facilities Use Agreement) - who was the funny guy who nicknamed it the FU agreement :)  For the conspiracy theorists out there (you know who you are), this document is perfectly reasonable, and is a part of the standard charter package of stuff, which you can find here: http://www.charterschooltools.org/toolCategoryList.cfm?vendorCategoryID=4.
Long story short, LASD and BCS used to use this agreement.  BCS sued over the legality of it, so it wasn't used the past couple of years while the judge deliberated.  The judge ruled in favor of the district, so the agreement is back.  Seems pretty straightforward to me, but I'm sure the conspiracy theorists out there will concoct some ulterior story/motives...

To self-site, or not to self-site?

Apologies to Mr Shakespeare, but apparently that is the question. Why do some charters choose to provide their own facilities, while others piggyback on the local district to furnish them?  Seems to me that finances would play a role here, because low income areas would be dependent upon help from the government. But what about the richest 1%?  Seems that they could self-site and build an awesome facility of opulence and prestige. So, when they don't do that, something else must be a driving motivation.  Could it be revenge, for the errant closing (and subsequent realization  and reopening) of the only LASD school in the hills?  Could it be spite, because of perceived injustices brought upon by the LASD board?  Could it be a political maneuver to help set legal precedent for all of the less privileged "I want school choice because it is my god-given right" proponents?  Maybe it's just a game for some rich folks with too much money and time on their hands?  Who knows, but hopefully we'll find out someday, before too many more kids get "used" in the process...

Marketing, or honesty, which will win the day?

I do feel bad for the parents who had to skip latte hour in order to picket at the LASD offices yesterday, but I have to wonder if they know about what they are picketing. Common sense would say that kids were being deprived of something, but that's not the case because NO kids (LASD or BCS) have access to the rooms  right now.  So. perhaps the picketing was because the BCS teachers don't have access to the rooms at Blach?  If that's the case, then we should move the whole congregation to Mr Moore's house, because it is actually BCS who has refused to sign the agreement which would provide them access.  And why did they refuse?  Because the rent went up?  News flash, Los Altos property values are rising, and BCS is getting more land.  And maybe, just maybe, there were some errors in the calculations which have since been fixed.   Whatever it is, there is no Diabolical Plan against the charter, as some would like you to believe, just people trying to educate kids.  Oh, and some just trying to generate marketing hype...