Palo Alto Online : School district to cancel Garland re-opening
Palo Alto Online : School district to cancel Garland re-opening
School district to cancel Garland re-opening
Extension of private school lease likely later this monthby Chris Kenrick
Palo Alto Online StaffShare
The Palo Alto school district is retreating from a plan to re-open Garland Elementary School, amid budget uncertainties and slowing enrollment growth.Four out of five school board members indicated Tuesday they will back a plan to rescind a termination notice to the private Stratford School, the current tenant at Garland, which is located on North California Avenue between Newell Road and Louis Road.
The four — all but Board President Barb Mitchell — also indicated they would recommit to an amended lease with Stratford that runs through June 2015 and requires three years’ notice if the district wants to terminate.
A final vote is scheduled for Aug. 25.
Barely six weeks ago, board members approved schematic architectural designs for a $15.5 million renovation of Garland in preparation for 2012 re-opening the campus at 870 N. California Ave.
But the thinking has changed.
Thanks to Burbed reader Herve for this find.
What does this all mean? Can anyone help decode? Will this help Palo Alto increase house prices by 10%? Or just 6%?
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:04 am
Financial troubles in Palo Alto? But this is god’s country!
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 am
Interest rates will have much more of an affect on house prices than a school not opening.
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am
That’s doom-and-gloom media spreading misinformation. Garland is opening soon. Because they received enough donation to open it. Remember RBA schools run by donation? Those donations are made by not just middle-class parents. CEO/CFO/CTO parents donated too. You know, those people no longer send their kids to private schools. Private school sucks.
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Not opening up a new school? That’s still better than down here in the real world where we don’t have a budget to keep existing schools running. Many school buildings are in bad shape and teachers got layoff notices.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:03 pm
That’s still better than down here in the real world where we don’t have a budget to keep existing schools running.
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I know SV Shopper, “real world” is real difficult place to live. I bet you prefer to live in Disneyland anyday – where there is no recession, no layoff.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Wow. I have seen the overflow down here and it’s bad. There are 3 CUSD elementary schools in Sunnyvale (5 if you’re bob), and the worst is Stocklmeir (in enrollment). CUSD kicked the resource people out of the adjacent set of buildings and moved grades 4&5 into that complex. I think Stocklmeir has around 950 kids in the K-5 school. 950!!! It’s like a million kids per classroom!
Chief problem is the other 2 elementary schools in the area (10 if you’re bob) weren’t just closed when enrollment dropped in the 70s (40s if you’re bob). They were sold to developers who bulldozed the schools. So CUSD has nowhere else to send those kids. You should see the place; portable classrooms everywhere, and by portable I mean trailer park
Also from what I hear, anyone enrolling their kids in PA school dist who are older than kindergarten has zero priority on either the neighborhood elementary school or even *keeping siblings together*
I am seriously considering moving to Mountain View now. Cheaper yet better than Palo Alto, less pressure and fewer suicides).
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Not to mention, you’d save millions of dollars for a house compared to PA.
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
ha – Los Gatos ranks above Paly.
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:26 pm
less pressure and fewer suicides
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Well, Palo Alto is like Disneyland, happiest place on earth. This news got to be untrue. Most likely it was a stunt.
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
It’s like a million kids per classroom!
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Don’t worry. There are millions of CEO/CFO/CTO parents living in RBA. Each of them will donate millions of dollars. Problem solved.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Hasn’t it occurred to any of you that houses in Palo Alto will drop by millions of dollars once the word gets out that Monta Vista beats Paly? Monta Vista. In Cupertino. You know, where all those engineers and networking geeks and software eggheads live.
Well, everyone knows Monta Vista is Spanish for Mountain View. And that’s a much better place to live than Palo Alto, where homes are overvalued by millions of dollars (billions if you’re bob).
What does it say when both Palo Alto (which has millions of homes) and Mountain View-Los Altos (which has millions of students) school districts each have both high schools on the Newsweek list? Then again, doesn’t that list have millions of high schools (trillions if you’re bob)? And here I am, living in 60% land, when only 3 out of 5 FUHSD schools (excuse me, I meant 3 million out of 5 million) made the list.
But HAH! Homestead made it. That makes me a superior parent who bought in Sunnyvale, qualified for Cupertino schools, and is sending her kid to a Top 1,000,000 high school, meaning I expect my eldest to take millions of APs. And my house isn’t even worth millions anymore… unless you count it in yen.
Heh.
August 24th, 2009 at 7:24 am
It still blows me away that people in PA and other SV towns actually pay more to live near their schools when half of them are having serious budget issues and the rest are basically trailers.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
hey mad estater – didja notice that FREMONT is #1504 on the 2009 list? Remarkably good for them, IMO.
August 24th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
I’m waiting for Mountain View housing prices to hit the crapper so I can buy. And to hell with the schools. Who needs an education anyway?!!
August 25th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Alex, have you missed all of the discussions about how good schools help with resale? Or are you looking for a house to die in someday?