Claiming that the Los Altos School District’s final facilities offer to Bullis Charter School substantially encroaches on Egan Junior High School space, an Egan PTA co-president wrote a letter to district officials outlining the group’s objections.
Egan has shared a portion of its campus with the charter school since 2003, when it opened. Next year, per the final facilities offer, the amount of space allotted to the charter school will jump to 40 percent of the total campus. The district is required to provide the charter school with “reasonably equivalent” facilities under Proposition 39 state law.
“In years past, (Egan Principal) Brenda (Dyckman) and her staff have been so good about managing the situation,” said Linda Baxley, Egan PTA co-president, in an interview with the Town Crier. “In the past, we could have complained, but we understood that it was better than closing some other campus. Now that 40 percent of our land is gone, including some very special places for our students, it was time to speak up.”
Baxley’s letter requests that the district:
• Take additional traffic safety precautions.
• Reduce the PTA’s fundraising commitment to offset the group’s plans to purchase duplicate sports equipment due to the shared gym.
• Provide space for music instruction.
• Solve the loss of the physical education after-school program and play space.
• Set clear physical boundaries between the schools.
• Hire or assign a district representative to handle facility-sharing problems between Egan and the charter school. (Historically, Egan administrators have handled shared-space requests).
• Guarantee no further encroachment on their campus.
“Egan has borne the entire brunt of the district’s facilities obligations under Proposition 39 to Bullis Charter School,” the letter states. “Year after year, Egan’s students and parents have done so without complaint or a request for any accommodations to compensate our students for their loss of facilities.”
The district’s response
Baxley said since she sent the letter April 20, she and PTA Co-Presidents Kim Gavenman and Kim Albright have met with Superintendent Jeff Baier and board President Mark Goines to discuss the concerns. She characterized the meeting as positive but said the board still must discuss the situation. The board was scheduled to address a response to the PTA letter at Monday’s board meeting, past the Town Crier’s press deadline.
In a follow-up letter after their meeting, the district representatives suggested that they could afford to replace sports equipment if the PTA maintained the same fundraising level as other district schools.
One of their major safety concerns involves whether Egan students may use a bike/pedestrian trail that traverses space allocated to the charter school.
Goines told Baxley that when the district asked charter school officials if district students could use the trail, which safeguards students from traffic congestion on West Portola Avenue, they denied the request. Bullis Charter School Board Chairman Ken Moore said he and Principal Wanny Hersey were unaware of the request. Goines said the district would continue to work with the city to ease traffic dangers on West Portola.
To replace the loss of Egan’s music facilities, the PTA officials and Goines considered converting the old school office (at the front of the school next to the bicycle racks) into a new music space.
In the event the charter school chooses not to share field space, the PTA representatives addressed potential alternatives for the after-school program, including using Santa Rita School fields. The discussion also touched on the possibility of an all-weather athletic space with a roof and storage for equipment, to supplement physical education instruction when the charter school uses the shared gym.
The PTA co-presidents communicated their concern over some of Egan’s “special” spaces being given away – part of the school’s garden space, for example, where students gather during breaks, will no longer be accessible to Egan students.
Baxley said the district has no plans to erect a fence dividing the two campuses, but it intends to install markers of some sort. She said Goines reported that he would advocate the district hire a neutral (non-Egan, non-charter school) representative to mediate the sharing of facilities.
“I’m pleased with Mark Goines’ response and the support he expressed,” Baxley said. “But the proof will be in the pudding at Monday’s meeting. We have gone as far as we can at Egan. It will materially impact our programs if any more is asked of our staff and students.”
