PALO ALTO, CA – As part of their ongoing effort to offer Los Altos Hills families as many choices as possible for their school-aged children, the Los Altos (LASD) and Palo Alto (PAUSD) school districts have entered into an agreement whereby students residing in the Town of Los Altos Hills may attend the local Bullis Elementary School even if they live in the portion of the community served by Palo Alto Unified.
“Our mission has always been to provide the students and families in our district with an array of outstanding educational options. This agreement with Los Altos Elementary adds one more such option for PAUSD residents of the Hills. Of course, those children always will be welcome in our schools and are a valuable part of our district – we just want them to have options,” said Mary Frances Callan.
The PAUSD board voted 5-0 Tuesday night (May 22) to approve this agreement, which also includes a provision to compensate Los Altos should that district become “basic aid” down the road, which would mean that the additional students wouldn’t be bringing additional state funding with them. The two districts had previously revised their transfer policies to provide more security for students, increasing the term of the transfers from one year to five.
Tim Justus commented, “We are extremely pleased to be able to offer this choice to the members of the Los Altos Hills community, and we thank PAUSD for making this opportunity available. Both LASD and PAUSD are exceptional school districts, but there will be those who will prefer a neighborhood school. And we will welcome these students gladly into what we believe will be a wonderful learning community.”
Bullis Elementary is scheduled to reopen as a neighborhood public school in the fall of 2008, upon completion of a $10-million upgrade to its educational and recreational facilities.
Revised May 2007 |