School News

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier

A cyclist rides across Homestead Road in Cupertino. The first Homestead Safe Routes to School community engagement meeting, held Nov. 26, gauged local residents’ opinions on how to improve the Homestead Road corridor. The thruway stretches from the intersection of Grant Road and Foothill Expressway in Los Altos to the intersection of Homestead Road, Hollenbeck Avenue and North Stelling Road in Cupertino.

With the first Homestead Road Safe Routes to School community meeting held last month and the next one set for January, the project to improve the thruway for cyclists and pedestrians is moving forward.

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier

Los Altos School District Board candidates Vaishali Sirkay, from left, and Vladimir Ivanovic and board member Sangeeth Peruri review election results on a smartphone Tuesday night during an election party gathering at the Courtyard by Marriott in Los Altos. Voters elected newcomer Sirkay and incumbent Ivanovic to the board.

Incumbents retained their seats on local school boards, and newcomers Catherine Vonnegut and Vaishali Sirkay will also join the high school and elementary school district boards, respectively. 

After 38 years in education and 11 years as a superintendent, Jeff Harding, superintendent of the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District, plans to retire, effective June 30.

Bullis Charter School plans to apply this fall to charter a new elementary school in the Mountain View Whisman School District.

McAlister

A local resident leveled a conflict-of-interest complaint against Mountain View City Councilman John McAlister last week, casting doubt on the council’s decisions regarding the Los Altos School District’s acquisition of land for a 10th campus.

Mountain View resident Ellyn Berner wrote in a letter that McAlister’s vote on the district’s 10th site constitutes a conflict of interest because he co-owns Stepping Stones preschool, located on the Covington School campus, which leases land from the district.

The Foothill-De Anza Community College District Board of Trustees plans to discuss Monday whether to place a bond measure on the November ballot, according to Chancellor Judy C. Miner.

“Because we don’t know if we will actually go out for a bond, we have no dollar amount established at this time,” Miner said, noting that $898 million was the highest amount mentioned on a survey the district conducted last October.