By Traci Newell

In an attempt to forgo redistricting, negotiations are under way to provide Los Altos Hills with a community-based public school involving the Bullis Charter School.

The 15-member committee, including officials from the Los Altos Hills City Council and board members from Los Altos, Palo Alto Unified and Mountain View-Los Altos Union High school districts and the Bullis Charter School, met April 5 to find a constructive alternative to redistricting.

Los Altos Hills Councilman Craig Jones said the committee is trying to come to an agreement to house the charter school at the Bullis-Purissima site in Los Altos Hills, under which LASD might run a program such as the full-day kindergarten program concurrently at the site. Jones

specified that the programs would maintain separate facilities on the land.

Also being negotiated is a proposal that children from Los Altos Hills would have special preference for access to the charter school regardless of whether they reside in the Los Altos or Palo Alto district.

“We always wanted to make this a neighborhood school,” said Marlin Miller, spokesperson for Bullis Charter School. Miller added that the charter school is space constrained at its current home at Egan Camp School and moving to the 10-acre Bullis-Purissima site would have enough capacity to handle additional students wanting to attend the charter.

“We would be more than happy to have those additional kids,” Miller said.

Jones said in the past informal agreements were used to ensure spots at Bullis-Purissima Elementary School for students residing on the Palo Alto side of the Hills. He said the redistricting subcommittee is looking to make access for Hills students “more formal and predictable.”

If the negotiations are finalized, allowing for the charter school to operate on the Bullis-Purissima site with special preferences to Hills students, then the high school lines would stay the same. Families in both the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School and Palo Alto Unified School districts would continue to attend their respective schools.

Jones said the committee is trying to draft a term sheet that could be signed by all the members of the committee by April 27. He said the term sheet might eventually become a legally binding document.

Funding for the proposed negotiations has not been tackled yet. Los Altos Hills Mayor Breene Kerr said, as he left the committee meeting on April 5, that the committee plans to discuss the funding of the negotiations at its next meeting, April 20.

Any recommendations from the committee will not be official until they are brought to the school districts and town for adoption at public meetings.