By Eliza Ridgeway

Proponents and opponents of redistricting will gather at the Santa Clara County Office of Education Thursday to argue their cases formally for the first time.

The fate of the Los Altos Hills City Council-led redistricting bid rests, for now, in the hands of the Santa Clara County Committee on School District Organization. The committee is a group of 11 representatives from around the county, elected by the region’s school boards. The meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. in the San Jose Room of the office of education at 1290 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose.

The committee will conduct an evaluation of the town’s redistricting resolution, which asks the county to create one independent K-8 school district for the town.

The superintendents of the Los Altos School District, the Palo Alto Unified School District and the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District jointly prepared materials to submit to the county. The districts claim they would lose millions of dollars in state funding should redistricting take place. Schools chiefs emphasized in a public statement that, from their point of view, redistricted students would no longer be able to attend LASD schools or Gunn High School in Palo Alto.

“This is the downside in the high-stakes game of trying out a new school system, and community members need to be completely aware of exactly what is at stake,” Tim Justus, Mary Frances Callan and Barry Groves said in a statement.

Redistricting advocates have said a Los Altos Hills district guarantees town schools stay open. Kathy Evans, a member of the Los Altos Hills reorganization committee, said that the town was still preparing the materials it would submit to the county committee, which would include a direct rebuttal to the superintendents’ claims. The document was unavailable at press time.

If the committee votes to develop a redistricting plan for the town, as the council has requested, the meeting would be the first step in a process that could take months or years. The planning would ultimately lead to a vote by the affected citizens on whether to adopt a new district for their town.

Redistricting could be halted in its tracks if the committee chooses not to pursue such a plan. In that case, the town’s resolution would be moot, and redistricting supporters would have to turn to a residents’ petition.

Barring either decision, the committee could decide to deliberate further and schedule additional meetings to examine the issue.

The county has requested that those who wish to address the committee preregister by contacting administrator Suzanne Carrig at (408) 453-6869.

For more information about the county redistricting committee and Thursday’s meeting, visit www.sccoe.org.