Proud of LAHS graduates

E.A. Smith

Many thanks to the city of Los Altos and to the organizations involved in the 50th anniversary celebration of Los Altos High School. It was a well-planned, well-orchestrated and well-attended (1,300-plus) weekend.

As a volunteer participant in the activities, I proudly observed a kind, well-grounded, sensitive, successful and appreciative group of graduates.

Go Knights!

School administrators in CUSD overpaid

Frances Hills

I have lived in the Cupertino Union School District since 1958. My children went to the Cupertino schools, and I was active in the PTA and other committees. At that time, we had more schools in the district than we do today, but only one superintendent and one assistant superintendent. Today, with fewer schools, we have a superintendent who is paid, I am told, about $250,000 and has five assistant superintendents - two of whom may be given a $20,000 raise - and I am wondering why a bond issue was just passed to prevent teachers from being laid off.

The teachers literally went from door to door asking residents to pass the bond issue, because they were afraid of losing their jobs. Most of them were young and new to the area and knew nothing of what had gone on in years past.

I, for one, am tired of schools thinking they have an endless source of funds that they can spend unscrupulously and have top-heavy administrators both in wages and numbers. It’s time for the schools to watch their budgets, the same as the citizenry must do. The funds belong to the citizens, not to the schools. The school districts are only caretakers of those funds. I am all for educating our children. I spent 20 years of my life teaching. But I do not care to support the top-heavy administration that we have today with excessive wages.

Now address current Pinewood traffic

Lil Beltramo

Many thanks to the Los Altos City Council for listening to the concerns raised by the neighbors of Pinewood School who would have been negatively impacted by the school’s proposal to expand. The council vote that denied the request made by the school has raised our confidence in our local government representatives.

The council’s decision was made despite the Los Altos Planning Commission recommendation to approve the school’s request for expansion. That the commission endorsed the expansion plan must be addressed. The neighbors of Pinewood School are united in strongly opposing any change to the campus that would alter our neighborhood’s rural character.

Ours is one of the last areas in Los Altos where one can still see tractors cultivating one-acre lots, thanks to Don Specialy, a longtime farmer who also cultivates our much-loved apricot orchard on San Antonio Road.

The planning commission needs to get on the same page with our city council and the residents of the Costello Acres neighborhood. Pinewood School has an enrollment of 125 students. It is already in violation of its conditional use permit that allows for only 108 students.

The next step for the planning department is to address the traffic nightmare that currently exists on Fremont Avenue, Covington Road and El Monte Road, resulting from the school rather than for them to consider any proposal that would add to it.

Council made good decision on Pinewood

Linda Freed

Once again, our city council listened and made a good decision for our city. Encroaching on residential neighborhoods is bad for cities.

You don’t have to drive far in any part of the world to see what happens when business is given permission to expand to places where people live. It really doesn’t matter how “good” the business is.

The Pinewood School area is not a neighborhood across from city-owned public land.

Part of the reason Pinewood parents gave for expansion was more “pre-K” spaces. There is a fine preschool in Los Altos that is accredited with the National Association for the Education of Young Children called Children’s Corner. It offers part-time programs that are designed for children of “pre-K” age.

Thanks again, city council.

Bring charter school to Bullis site

Jean (John) Mordo

The Town Crier article “Redistricting back on table for LAH council” (May 11) reads as though I am in support of redistricting. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I was not initially in favor of the charter school strategy, and during my campaign I emphasized that the way to bring back public education in the Hills was negotiation, not confrontation. Unfortunately, since I have been involved more closely, I have found that the Los Altos School District has not been willing to make the only logical choice, which is best for the whole community and, incidentally, best financially for the district. The charter school would not have been created were it not for the district’s lack of responsiveness.

Our Public Education Committee made a presentation requesting the support of the council for a citizen’s initiative to redistrict the town and create a Los Altos Hills Elementary School District, or some other configuration. I am the one who pointed out to my colleagues that in a survey last year, a majority of the residents (about two-thirds) were against making a change because they were happy with their current situation, be it the Palo Alto Unified School District or the Los Altos School District. But I also warned that people’s opinions were evolving and could become more in favor of redistricting. I myself had evolved, but not to the point of supporting the “nuclear” option.

And I urged the Los Altos City Council members to use their personal influence to try to get to the right solution before the redistricting movement went too far. It is still not too late. Let’s get the charter school into the Bullis-Purissima School campus and heal the community.

Editor’s note: It is our policy to report impartially on matters of reader interest, such as the charter school issue. The Town Crier did not imply that Jean Mordo was in favor of redistricting Los Altos Hills. The quotes attributed to Mordo were made by him during the May 3 and May 5 city council meetings, which were public forums.