An Open Letter Regarding LASD’s 2013-14 Facilities Offer to Bullis Charter School
Dear LASD Board, LASD Administration, LASD Parents and Town Crier and Patch Readers:
I’m a parent of two BCS students this year, and will have a third starting in the fall. This is our seventh year of being a part of the LASD community. My family is very happy with the choice we made regarding the education of our children. I’ve attended several meetings over the last few months regarding how to move forward as a community on the issue of a long term solution for the Bullis Charter School.
I’m very happy that I took the time to engage with the LASD board, BCS representatives and the rest of the LASD parent community (whether they are parents of LASD children attending the district schools or BCS). I’ve learned a lot about the concerns of my peers, the other LASD parents, whose children attend district schools.
The most common pleas that I’ve heard are:
1. Don’t close another neighborhood elementary school
1. Don’t close another neighborhood elementary school
2. Don’t bring a commuter school into our neighborhood
3. Don’t break up a community that’s together for seven years
Through the discussion of these concerns, face to face with the other parents, I can very clearly see why moving BCS to a district elementary campus and reallocating the students to other elementary schools would be very disruptive on these three dimensions.
After reflecting on this for a while, I believe I have a solution that could create a long term solution for a BCS facility without being disruptive on these three important dimensions. Specifically:
1. Move BCS from the Egan camp to the Blach campus
2. Consolidate LASD middle school attendance at the Egan campus, taking advantage of the camp site
3. Extend an invitation to current Blach 7th graders to attend BCS for eighth grade
I see many benefits:
1. Blach is a commuter school, as it draws from half of LASD, so there’s no net detriment to the surrounding community and BCS’s current practice of staggered class starts may actually help traffic.
2. The Egan+camp site is already set up with two parking/drop-off locations to help mitigate traffic congestion at the Egan site.
3. Blach 7th graders could complete their middle school experience in the same facility they started in.
4. LASD could realize efficiencies in merging the two middle school programs on one campus.
5. The lawsuits go away
6. BCS can plan for reasonable growth within a stable and known capacity
Granted, there are some downsides:
1. There would be a longer commute for middle school students from the southern and eastern parts of LASD (note: that’s where we commute from to BCS, and it’s not horrifying).
2. Egan would be a large school, but no larger than it already is hosting both Egan and BCS.
3. There would be disruption for the Blach teaching team during the transition year if the eighth grade teachers stay behind.
4. There would be a very challenging human resources problem to solve when dealing with Blach/Egan redundancies
The benefits far outweigh the challenges of this proposal. I understand time is short, but with a clear vision towards a long term solution, we could make a very positive change with minimum disruption.
