By Kerri Havnen Gordon

Voting with the head and the heart - again

Here we go again. Last spring I wrote about voting with the head and the heart and why passing Los Altos School District’s parcel tax increase was the right thing to do. By a painfully slim margin last April, our community failed to pass the measure. The $333 parcel tax increase, Measure H, is again up for election on Nov. 5.

Historically, the Los Altos community has supported its award-winning schools on election day. A few too many people, confident last spring that the parcel tax increase would pass, neglected to get to the polls, causing the measure’s narrow defeat.

Any complacency among district parents was quickly shattered when news of the resulting $4 million in budget cuts filtered through the community. Stunned parents packed school board meetings and were shocked at how the measure’s defeat would impact their children. These cuts included significantly increased class sizes, elimination of junior high electives and the postponed opening of a seventh elementary school.

Concerned parents quickly mounted an extraordinary fund-raising effort to restore some of the most painful cuts. Save Our Staff, formed in response to the failed measure, raised over $1.4 million, and the Los Altos Educational Foundation has pledged $1.2 million in support this year. Together the two groups are succeeding, for this year only, in stabilizing class sizes and restoring junior high electives such as band and foreign languages. LAEF has also continued its ongoing support of music, art, physical education and technology programs. While LAEF counts on the community’s support annually, SOS was a one-time, grass-roots effort.

Still, SOS and LAEF could not restore all of the cuts.

At my child’s elementary school, the issue gets personal. Without the monetary collaboration of all eight PTAs in the district, our beloved librarian, Mrs. Leadingham, and her counterparts at the other schools would not have been reinstated after their positions were cut last spring. While our library programs were rescued this year, it is doubtful the PTAs would be able to repeat this collaboration should the parcel tax fail.

We weren’t so lucky with our science program. The district eliminated the position of Mrs. Rodwell, our amazing science specialist who spearheaded scientific experiments and did wonders in enriching the curriculum. I am sad for my fifth-grader that he no longer has the benefit of Mrs. Rodwell’s knowledge and enthusiasm.

Additionally, district cuts have drastically reduced the hours of classroom aides who directly support the teachers with tasks ranging from leading reading groups to handling busywork. In our school’s second- and third-grade classes, for instance, aide time has gone from 2.5 hours per week to 30 minutes.

The list goes on. Each school’s supply budget was completely eliminated. This includes all paper products, ranging from construction paper to toilet paper. It also includes pencils, glue, crayons, paint, paintbrushes and markers. Custodial time was cut by 22 percent. School copy machine budgets were eliminated, as were school office clerk positions. My son’s school no longer offers a musical recorder program in fourth grade since there are no district funds to pay the teacher.

When it gets right down to it, this parcel tax increase is about our community’s children and giving them the best education we can offer in the wake of increasingly scanty funding from the state. It is about spreading responsibility for our exemplary Los Altos schools among our entire community. And it’s about quality staff like Mrs. Rodwell and Mrs. Leadingham.

Our children are worth the extra $333 annually - that’s 91 cents daily - it will cost the owners of each parcel. Four thousand children in our school district deserve your yes vote on Measure H.

Gordon is a current PTA president and has two children in the Los Altos School District. Send comments to livingexperiment@pacbell.net.