Los Altos Town Crier » LAH Public Education Committee looks to bar public from meetings

By Kathleen Acuff

The Los Altos Hills Public Education Committee is pondering whether it is, or should be, a standing committee of the town council or an ad hoc committee not subject to public scrutiny. Steve Hubbell, PEC chairman, suggested asking the committee’s council liaison, Breene Kerr, who was absent, to look into the matter.

The question surfaced several times during the Dec. 2 meeting. According to its official minutes, the Los Altos Hills City Council established PEC as a standing committee Aug. 7. City Clerk Karen Jost has confirmed that the committee is public.

Chris Vargas attended PEC’s Dec. 2 meeting, in Edward Emling’s home, on behalf of Bullis Charter School supporters. He proposed that representatives of the two groups attend each other’s meetings, and he invited PEC members to the charter school’s “Meet the Principal” event tonight at Fremont Hills Country Club.

Vargas also advised PEC members not to give the public the impression that PEC is a “stacked committee” that is “hiding in people’s homes.”

Committee member Duncan MacMillan suggested that PEC talk to each local school district about the possibility of taking Los Altos Hills into its territory and operating a school in the town. The committee informally decided that MacMillan, Hubbell and possibly Stacey Ahrens, who was absent, will make formal presentations to administrative personnel, probably “deputy superintendents,” of the Los Altos School District, Palo Alto Unified School District and Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, to Bullis Charter School and to Joe Simitian and Ted Lempert, respectively the current and former assemblyman for the 21st District.

Another subgroup will work on drawing tax revenue area boundaries on a copy of the town parcel map and finding a discreet way to pinpoint students on it by grade level. Emling, Jill Jensen, Kathy Evans and Nancy Kelem volunteered for the map project.

According to a PEC summary of tax dollars per student per district, residents of Los Altos Hills - which PEC says has 979 students attending public school - pay a total of $13,082,959 in property taxes and parcel taxes annually.

“We’re spending $13 million to educate just shy of 1,000 kids,” Hubbell said.

The committee has been researching basic aid as a revenue option for a school district of its own and has asked Simitian’s office for an explanation of the current basic aid situation.

“(LASD Superintendent) Marge Gratiot can just see basic aid - this far away,” Hubbell said, holding his thumb and index finger close together. “If we pulled out, that would just about end it (for the school district).”