Schools face widening achievement gap, plan for construction projects

Local schools in Mountain View made big headlines this year, as school districts search for new ways to narrow the achievement gap and build new facilities on a tight budget.

This year marked the first Common Core-aligned state standardized test, and with it came some dismaying news. Results showed low-income and English-learner students in all of the local school districts are performing well below their peers, revealing a gap in achievement that is larger than the state average. The widening performance gulf prompted all three local districts to seek outside help from education consultants, including the commissioning of a $275,000 review of the Mountain View Whisman School District’s program performed by Cambridge Education.

Major school construction plans for the future were also a topic for discussion, but many of them remain unresolved going into 2016. The Mountain View Whisman district board agreed to open a new school, but details remain vague.

The Los Altos School District also continues to weigh its options on how to spend the $150 million Measure N school bond revenue following a close vote at the ballot box last year. The district has conducted several community meetings and continues to meet with Los Altos city officials, but myriad options appear to be on the table to address growing enrollment.

Mountain View Whisman

The year saw a steady barrage of big challenges, upsets and surprises for the Mountain View Whisman School District this year. Former Interim Superintendent Kevin Skelly, who parted ways with the district in June, set up two committees to hash out a plan for new school boundaries and new facilities, and to decide whether it was time to open a new elementary school.

The district’s Boundary Advisory Task Force formulated options that included closing down several of the district’s schools. Many of the options incorporated the possibility for a new school in the Whisman-Slater area, but often at a cost to other schools. A number of the scenarios included relocating Stevenson PACT, the district’s highly popular choice program, and closing down Stevenson Elementary.

Early in the year, families and teachers often showed up at school board meetings en masse to lobby for their school. The discussions on new boundaries would occasionally pit one school community against another because of competing interests, particularly between Whisman-Slater area residents demanding a new school and the Stevenson PACT community. Board member Bill Lambert said at a recent board retreat that he believed the whole process had been mishandled.

The school board also faced a host of problems this year, including the resignation of board president Chris Chiang. Chiang announced his plans to step down in an email immediately following the June 11 board meeting, citing hostility by board member Steve Nelson, which he said continued to cause “devastating harm” to the district. He wrote that Nelson was allowed to “insult and harass district staff, teachers and members of the public, without rebuke from the rest of the board.”

The resignation prompted an avalanche of requests by former board members and dozens of parents demanding that Nelson resign. A short-lived effort to recall Nelson fizzled out within two months of Chiang’s resignation.

Nelson’s conduct on the board came up as an issue earlier in the year as well. In February, members of the community began questioning the resignation of former Superintendent Craig Goldman, who last year received a $230,000 severance payment on his way out. But because it was a resignation, and not a termination, the payout was questioned by several residents, including parent Brett Pauly.

In a special agenda item on the issue, it became clear that the payout was in exchange for Goldman’s signing of a non-disparagement agreement and waiving his legal right to the sue the district. But details were sparse as to why the former superintendent would want to sue the district in the first place, and the meetings discussing the severance agreement were held in closed session.

Chiang said he would have voted for the payout in an open-session meeting, and that Nelson’s conduct was so hostile he believed it had became a legal liability.

Still, the district reached some closure this year. The board ultimately decided, in a split vote, to open a new school at Slater Elementary, which would bring a neighborhood school back to the northeast region of Mountain View. How the district will finance the new school, redraw boundaries and balance enrollment, however, remain unanswered questions heading into 2016.

The district is also expected to welcome in the new year with big changes following a $275,000 audit of all the schools and the district office that found several major deficiencies that are holding students back. The new superintendent, Ayinde Rudolph, said he will develop a strategic plan early next year, which will guide the district towards raising student achievement and eliminating the achievement gap.

Mountain View-Los Altos

The normally quiet Mountain View-Los Altos High School District also had its share of time in the limelight this year after the district grappled with and eventually resolved claims of racial bias in the way it placed minority students in ninth-grade mathematics. The district also sparked a tremendous parent and student outcry when it didn’t renew the contract of a popular drama teacher.

In June, a civil rights group called the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR) released a report claiming that the high school district disproportionately places black and Latino students in lower-level math compared with placement of their white and Asian peers. As a result, the group claimed, the minority students were not on track to complete higher-level math classes such as calculus by senior year, putting them at a disadvantage when applying for college.

The root of the problem, according to the LCCR, was that the district had no concrete, written math placement policies, and the use of subjective measures, such as teacher recommendations, could be adversely affecting minority students.

District administrators, including former Superintendent Barry Groves, vigorously denied that they hold minority students back, and maintained that the district’s placement policies were equitable and allowed for plenty of mobility for students who want to try a more challenging math class.

In August, the LCCR and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation filed a formal complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights regarding the district’s math placement policy.

But the problem was averted when the new superintendent, Jeff Harding, decided the district should adopt a formal math placement policy that clearly outlines what criteria determine how students are placed in ninth-grade math. The policy still allows for wiggle room, including the ability for students to request a more challenging math class. Shortly after the board adopted the new policy, the LCCR and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation dropped the complaint.

In March, the board was loudly criticized for supporting the superintendent’s decision not to re-hire a popular drama teacher at Mountain View High School, Rob Seitelman. More than 150 students and parents packed the multipurpose room at Alta Vista High School as the board considered whether to retain Seitelman and grant him tenure after his second year of teaching.

Students made a passionate appeal to the board for more than an hour at the meeting about how Seitelman changed their outlook on life and gave them a renewed sense of confidence. But the board unanimously approved a “resolution to non-reelect” Seitelman.

Parents stepped in after the decision and demanded an explanation from the board of their decision, delaying the board from moving on to the next agenda item for more than 10 minutes.

The district also has some loose ends to be resolved next year, including a revision to its homework policies. Concerned with stress and mental health issues, board members mulled over possible changes earlier this year that would reduce homework loads on students, particularly going into finals week and holidays.

Los Altos

It’s been over a year since the Los Altos School District passed the $150 million Measure N school bond, but board members continue to explore options for where to open a new school to deal with growing enrollment at the district’s existing campuses.

Early in the year, the district began negotiating with the owner of the three-acre property at 201 San Antonio Circle, home to a two-story office building near the San Antonio Caltrain station. The location in Mountain View and north of El Camino Real would be well-placed to serve the growing number of students in Mountain View within the Los Altos School District boundaries. But building a new school there would be very expensive, as the district would have to buy up private land in a hot real estate market.

To help sweeten the deal, the board asked whether the Mountain View City Council would be willing to set aside any money to help purchase adjacent land for a field, which could be used by the school during the day. The council tentatively agreed to a partnership with the district, which means roughly $7.5 million of the city’s dedicated park fund could be used to acquire shared land.

The district also continues to meet with the city of Los Altos in an attempt to hash out a deal to share public land. More options could be open for the district following the landslide defeat of a $65 million city bond to rebuild the Hillview Community Center.

Since the early half of the year, the district has also started to look at options for its own land, including using the large Covington Elementary and Egan Junior High for another campus.