By Sara Ballenger

Victory spelled relief for the supporters of the Los Altos School District. Measure H, a $333 parcel tax increase, passed by the needed two-thirds majority vote in the Nov. 5 general election. The district failed to pass the same increase in a special election last April.

According to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, the measure passed with 70.3 percent or 10,213 yes votes and 29.7 percent or 4,322 no votes counted.

The new parcel tax will assess a $597 tax per parcel per year within school district boundaries beginning July 1, 2003. A parcel is defined by the assessor as the lot on which a house is built. The district includes parts of Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View and Palo Alto.

The approximately $4 million generated will be used to maintain reduced class size, support small neighborhood schools, hire and retain quality teachers, fund school libraries, provide student educational materials, retain music, language and computer classes in the junior high schools and balance the district’s educational program, according to the district.

Without the passage of Measure H, the district would have been forced to consider drastically changing its academic program and the possibility of closing more than one elementary school, said Marge Gratiot, superintendent.

“I am delighted and relieved that Measure H passed by such an impressive margin,” Gratiot said. “Our students are lucky to live in a community where more than 70 percent of the voters are willing to support a high-quality public school system.”

When asked what made Measure H a success, campaign co-chairwoman Debbie Torok said it was the sense of the whole community’s coming together to support it.

“Everyone benefits by the passage of Measure H,” she said. “We had to pass this or everyone was going to lose. It would have been an immediate loss for the parents and a slow loss for the community. We were only able to win with the overwhelming support of the community, which goes beyond the parents.”

The community stepped up to the plate to volunteer with the Measure H campaign. Hundreds of volunteers worked to get the word out about the measure in a number of ways: putting up yard signs, handing out and e-mailing campaign literature and calling potential voters from campaign headquarters at the Rancho Shopping Center.

One Measure H parent volunteer even drove an elderly woman to her polling place, Christ Episcopal Church on Border Road, so she could cast her vote before the 8 p.m. deadline.

“She had tried to go last year and got lost,” Connie Ives said. “I knew where it was and she lived close to my home, so I picked her up. We had some trouble finding it and got lost in the dark, but we got there 10 minutes before 8 p.m. and she was able to vote. She was really thankful.”

Many volunteers said the community was responsive to the campaign.

“We had people calling us saying, ‘How can we help?’ We had volunteers calling from the lawn. Our back alley was full of volunteers wrapped in blankets using flashlights to call from their cell phones,” said parent-volunteer Ellen Drew describing the night before the election. “I don’t think we could have tried any harder.”

Unlike the special election in April, this time around the district hired Barry Barnes and Jared Boigon, from Terris and Barnes, a San Francisco-based consulting firm with a history of working on school bonds and measures. The campaign, which cost around $120,000, was paid through donations. The district is responsible for the cost of the election but not the cost of the campaign, said Dick Hasenpflug, co-chairman of the Measure H campaign.

About 80 percent of the budget for the campaign was spent on communication, Hasenpflug added. The campaign message worked.

“I believe we had a turnout of 85 percent, yes voters, which is a whole different story from April,” Hasenpflug said.

The district’s campaign consultants told supporters to identify 5,000 yes votes in order to win the election. Through phone calls, volunteers were able to identify 8,500 yes voters, Torok added.

“By and large the population is more informed and involved than ever in schools issues,” said Maria Dickerson, the fund-raising chairwoman for the campaign. “The community seemed to understand the consequences if we didn’t win.”

While the efforts of volunteers paid off, the district still does not have enough money to open its planned seventh elementary school even with the crucial funds from Measure H.

“There are some tough choices that still have to be made,” Dickerson said. “This tax is not enough to erase the deficit.”

The district’s Citizens’ Advisory Committee for Finance has been working on a six-year financial plan including scenarios for operating six or seven elementary schools.

“The scenarios include a description of the possible educational programs that would be affordable under each scenario,” Gratiot said. “For instance, if the district chooses to operate seven elementary schools, class size might be larger than with six elementary schools. I don’t expect any decisions will be made soon, as the board will want some community input before they make decisions.”

The advisory committee presented scenarios to the Los Altos School District Board of Trustees at its meeting Nov. 12, after the Town Crier went to press. Look for an update in the Nov. 20 issue.