When Morgan Hill School Board trustees discussed the proposed
Coyote Valley development during their last board meeting, they
focused on the financial implications of taking on a project that
would double the number of schools in the district. For the seven
trustees on the board, the most important question was: Can the
district afford to be involved in the project, which will
eventually be home to 50,000 people, or, will abandoning the
development bankrupt the district?
When Morgan Hill School Board trustees discussed the proposed Coyote Valley development during their last board meeting, they focused on the financial implications of taking on a project that would double the number of schools in the district.
For the seven trustees on the board, the most important question was: Can the district afford to be involved in the project, which will eventually be home to 50,000 people, or, will abandoning the development bankrupt the district?
If, as Trustees Amina Khemici and Julia Hover-Smoot are proposing, the district petitions to get rid of the Coyote Valley portion of the district, then the district will lose the Average Daily Attendance funding from the students in that portion of the district. ADA funding is worth about $5,000 per student.
The area is currently home to 900 students in the district – 300 from Martin Murphy Middle School and 600 at Los Paseos Elementary schools. Losing the funding for those students would cost the district approximately $4.5 million.
The general fund budget for the 2005-2006 school year is $57 million.
The Charter School is also located in south San Jose on Monterey Highway in the former Encinal Elementary School near the intersection of Bailey Avenue. The district does not receive any ADA from Charter School students.
Some of the students at Martin Murphy are bused from Morgan Hill and would have to be placed at Britton Middle School if the district got rid of that portion of the district. The ADA from those students would not be lost. All of the Los Paseos students would remain in the Coyote area, costing all of their ADA funding.
According to Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini, who heads the business services department, she has been requested by Superintendent Alan Nishino to put together detailed information about the costs to run these schools – electricity, water, teacher salaries, staff salaries, custodial, etc.
“It would probably take us a week or more to compile the complete information, and Dr. Nishino wanted to give us a chance to begin working on this,” Tognazzini said Monday. “This is something that they’ll be looking at in the future.”
Tognazzini said she did not know if the information would be included in an agenda for a school board meeting.
One thing Tognazzini said the district does know now that wasn’t clear during the discussion on Sept. 12 is that the position of the board, either for keeping, or, for getting rid of Coyote Valley, makes little difference.
“What we found out is that it is not even up to Morgan Hill,” she said. “The community can have an election, but if they do so, the results will only be taken as advisory. It must be Coyote Valley; they must be the ones to petition.”
Another question that was brought up during the Sept. 12 meeting was the school buildings themselves, whether or not the district could sell Los Paseos, Martin Murphy and the Charter School to a new district or a district that would absorb this part of MHSD.
That would be doubtful, Tognazzini said, unless some special arrangement were made to compensate MHSD, because the schools are state property and the state would likely shift control to whatever district assumed the area.
A report by Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team at the request of the board to determine the financial impact of losing the northern portion of the district was never completed, but the partial report indicated the district would lose ADA. Hover-Smoot said during the Sept. 12 meeting that the loss could be compensated by the loss of expenses associated with the schools.
One of the major points Hover-Smoot and Khemici used in arguments in favor of forming a new Coyote Valley school district was the number of residents that will flood into the development if planners projections are correct. The Coyote Valley Specific Plan calls for 25,000 homes, 50,000 jobs and 80,000 residents. Hover-Smoot and Robert Benich, a concerned community member, told the board that San Jose residents of Coyote Valley would be making decisions for Morgan Hill schools because the board would be filled by people from Coyote Valley. The number of students Coyote Valley would create has not been estimated.
Nishino pointed out that many districts, such as San Jose Unified, have boards composed of trustees representing trustee areas. Trustee Mike Hickey suggested the possibility of creating an equal number of trustee areas for Morgan Hill and Coyote Valley, with one “at-large” position, or one position representing San Martin.
