One of two remaining recommendations from the School District
boundary committee was presented to the public in a forum at
Britton Middle School Tuesday night and will be presented again at
Martin Murphy Middle School Oct. 13, the School Board decided
Monday night.
One of two remaining recommendations from the School District boundary committee was presented to the public in a forum at Britton Middle School Tuesday night and will be presented again at Martin Murphy Middle School Oct. 13, the School Board decided Monday night.
“This is inherently a political process,” Trustee Del Foster said Monday. “It is a compromise that is not going to be perfect. Not everyone is going to be happy, it just isn’t possible. But on the high school boundaries, they (the boundary committee) have tweaked it the best they can and I believe we have to take this recommendation to the forums.”
The option presented has Britton students attending Live Oak High and Martin Murphy students attending Sobrato High. With this option, each of the schools would be in its own boundary, although some students that could potentially walk to Live Oak would be within the Sobrato boundary.
The dividing line jogs back and forth, starting on Half Road in east Morgan Hill, up to Highway 101, back up Dunne Avenue, back to Highway 101, down to Tennant Avenue, up to Monterey and north to Dunne Avenue again where it jogs back to Depot Street and back up to Monterey.
Maps indicating the proposed line will be displayed at the Oct. 13 forum.
Trustee Shelle Thomas expressed concern during the Sept. 22 board meeting that the board have more of an opportunity to make decisions on the boundaries, rather than simply accepting the recommendations of the committee. Trustees George Panos, Jan Masuda and Foster, along with Board President Tom Kinoshita, noted the time and effort the committee had spent. Panos said his thought was that the board did not need to “rubber stamp” the committee’s recommendation, but if it coincided with their own opinion, then that would be ideal.
Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Branco told Thomas Monday night that the board would receive feedback from the forums and could then come to its own decision.
Branco also provided trustees with a list of the guiding principles for drawing the boundary lines, as defined by the committee. Thomas and Trustees Mike Hickey and Amina Khemici had requested information on how the committee had weighted the principles in making their decisions.
The guiding principles the committee used are:
” Maintain neighborhood schools; Emphasize safe walking routes to and from school; Minimize disruption (movement from school to school); Equalize enrollment; Size of school supports educational setting and capacity of site; Account for future growth; Address/Equalize ethnic balance; Address transportation issues; Support feeder school system.”
During Monday’s meeting, trustees gave their rankings of the principles to Branco, who said she would bring back to the Oct. 20 meeting the averaged results. But five of the seven trustees ranked “Maintain neighborhood schools” first, with Panos ranking it second in importance and Kinoshita ranking it fourth.
The boundary committee has been meeting since January to develop recommendations for the board on possible changes to boundary lines because of the projected opening of Sobrato High School in August 2004.
In August, School Board trustees directed the committee to focus on secondary boundaries first, with a decision to be made in November, and later elementary boundaries, with a decision to be made in January.
Trustees also tossed out one of the five elementary options, which was to leave current elementary boundaries the same. District officials have said elementary boundaries need to be redrawn due to overcrowding at Nordstrom and a socio-economic imbalance in the district.
