Los Altos School District officials bristled last week over an advertisement placed in the Nov. 1 Town Crier describing proposed boundaries for reopening the Bullis-Purissima School campus in Los Altos Hills.

The ad, placed by a group of pro-Bullis Charter School parents, claimed the school board’s Oct. 9 decision not to place the charter school at the Bullis site would “have a dramatic effect on the neighborhoods in Los Altos.”

The ad displayed redrawn attendance boundary areas under a Sept. 22 proposal to reopen the Bullis-Purissima campus as an LASD K-6 “startup.”

“Since the district refuses to put the charter school at Bullis-Purissima, their plan is to start a district K-6 operation from scratch at Bullis in the fall of 2008,” the ad read. “Most of the students at the re-opened Bullis campus will come from Los Altos, requiring changes to school attendance areas in Los Altos. As a Los Altos resident, these changes could easily change which school your children will attend.” The ad further warned parents that “commuting across Foothill Expressway or El Monte may become part of your routine.”

Superintendent Tim Justus responded to the ad in a letter to parents, noting “the ad was not from the school district and is not an accurate representation of the facts. The ad was written and sponsored by supporters of the Bullis Charter School in an attempt to create confusion and unrest over the district’s decision not to place the charter school at the Bullis-Purissima School site.”

Justus said the information about proposed attendance areas is false, and that there are no proposed changes in district attendance areas at this time. … The location of the Bullis Charter School has no bearing on the district’s future adjustment of the attendance areas.”

The district board has agreed to keep the charter school in temporary classrooms on the Egan Intermediate School campus.

“I can assure you that our district will continue to identify and evaluate alternative locations to the Egan site for the charter school,” Justus wrote in his letter to parents.

He added that the district will begin working on identifying future attendance areas in early 2007.

LASD Board President Margot Harrigan said the boundary map used in last week’s ad was one of several early options discussed.

“Any future changes to the attendance areas will be discussed in public sessions and implemented over a period of years,” Justus said.

The ad, attributed to residents Thomas Cho, Francie Curtiss and Peter van der Linden, does not state that it is a paid advertisement.

Town Crier Publisher Paul Nyberg said the ad should have had clear attribution to a political group. “It slipped by us,” he said.