The wide-ranging impact of redistricting

On Thursday, Los Altos Hills school redistricting supporters are scheduled to appear before the Santa Clara County Committee on School District Reorganization to argue their case for a separate public K-8 district exclusive to the town. This is a major step in what could be a long process to create a town school district.

While redistricting supporters may have good intentions, the impacts of this bid hurt not only schoolchildren across three local districts, but the community as a whole - including many Los Altos Hills families. Here’s why.

As we’ve said before, the Los Altos Hills City Council’s involvement in the public education fray wastes town funds needed in the process of pursuing the bid. It forces officials in the Los Altos School District, Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District and Palo Alto Unified School District to waste resources fending it off.

Second, if redistricting is successful, the school districts would be out millions of dollars as Los Altos Hills children and the accompanying state funding go to the new school district, along with public school properties - namely, the Bullis-Purissima school site and possibly the site of the Pinewood upper campus (property currently owned by Palo Alto Unified). Town families happy with Loyola school in the Los Altos district would go to the new district. The surrounding districts’ programs would face cuts, impairing the quality of education.

It becomes a concern for all of us across Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Mountain View. Just as LASD parcel-tax supporters stressed that strong schools are integral to high property values, conversely, redistricting could hurt these values. Redistricting advocates should understand that 64 percent of town residents supported the Los Altos district’s parcel tax renewal in last month’s election, which passed with nearly 78 percent of the vote.

There’s another bigger-picture concern: Redistricting in Los Altos Hills could set a dangerous precedent throughout the county and state, inspiring affluent communities to form their own districts, leaving out the less privileged. Some school leaders suspect that cities like Saratoga, Los Gatos and Hillsborough could follow this precedent.

What is the impetus behind redistricting? Clearly, it is LASD’s closure of Bullis-Purissima in 2003 and the subsequent formation of the Bullis Charter School with the ultimate guarantee that a public school or schools will always be present in town. The irony here is that LASD will reopen Bullis-Purissima as a K-6 school in 2008.

So why does the redistricting quest continue? Many proponents simply do not trust LASD to keep Bullis open. But given the small number of students potentially served, the result may not be what redistricting advocates had envisioned. Redistricting is not the answer to the town’s schools issue. On the other hand, it is imperative that the Los Altos district board keep all future commitments to the town so that trust can be rebuilt.