Bullis Charter School officials say they have no intention of moving to the Los Altos School District’s (LASD) 10th site in Mountain View when it’s built.
In a statement to the Los Altos School District Board of Trustees, the charter school said, “BCS has made its home at Egan and Blach schools and intends to remain at those locations.”
At its Oct. 13 school board meeting, LASD trustees voted 4-1 to begin the process to allocate the San Antonio site to Bullis Charter when it is scheduled to open in the 2028-2029 school year. Trustee Vladimir Ivanovic voted against the motion.
LASD Superintendent Sandra McGonagle said there are a number of factors that led to the recommendation by the staff. They include overcrowding at the Blach and Egan campuses, moving to a junior high school model of adding sixth graders to those two schools and traffic safety concerns. Adding to
that, the district has aging portable classrooms, some over 25 years old, that have to be dealt with.
Maureen Israel, the executive director at Bullis Charter, said BCS families were told “LASD does not have the authority to unilaterally relocate BCS to a new location without our consent. In fact, that would violate the law, and LASD has already been stopped by a court from doing this in the past.”
Trustee Vladimir Ivanovic voted against the motion, telling the Town Crier the move “puts BCS in the best and newest campus before any upgrades to our current facilities.”
Among those speaking to the school board before the vote was former LASD Trustee Sangeeth Peruri who said, “Having studied this issue for over a decade, my recommendation (for the Charter School) is San Antonio and Egan campuses.” Peruri added, “Placing both BCS campuses near each other would simplify logistics for families at multiple sites.”
He said San Antonio Road can far better handle that traffic than the currently used Covington Road, a two-lane street.
