Jay Fischer's letter regarding bicyclists riding near the left edge of bicycle lanes betrays a lack of understanding of the problem ("Bicyclists, drivers must obey the rules," SpeakOut, Feb. 3). Given the large number of cars with dark tinted windows and large headrests, it is not possible for a cyclist to know if a car is occupied. Anyone who has cycled for long is well aware of the danger of being "doored" by a driver flinging a car door open across the bike lane.

Even where there is not a parking lane to the right of the bike lane, the cyclist is often forced to stay to the left by the large amount of glass and metal litter found along many of San Jose's streets, made worse by the city council's decision to cut back on street sweeping outside of the downtown area.

His position in suggesting that it is wrong for a cyclist to use Blossom Hill Road also displays a lack of understanding of California Vehicle Code Section 21200(a). Simply put, if oncoming traffic and the narrowness of the road makes it unsafe to pass a cyclist, the motorist should not do so.

Most cyclists are well aware that in a collision with a car the cyclist is going to come out on the short end; unfortunately, all too many California drivers fail to understand that a cyclist is also a legitimate user of the road.

Bill Beeman

Burchell Avenue

New district backers
want better schools

I just want to make a few comments about the new school district ("Breakaway proponents hold 'town hall' meeting," Jan. 27). Breaking off has nothing to do with racism or elitism. It's funny how if you are white and try to help your kids and surrounding community, you are automatically a racist, or a nicer word "elitist."

In 1974, when the suit first came against San Jose Unified School District, were the parents fighting for their kids called racist? No, because they were not white. If they were white, the term racist would have been used by many. As a parent I am trying to make my kids education better. The only way I see to do that is by breaking off from this school district. San Jose unified officials are so afraid of getting sued again that they won't close schools in the area of declining enrollment. They choose instead to close some of their top schools with increased enrolment. Randol Elementary School was too full in September to accept anymore kids. The district had kept the neighborhood boundary small so very few kids enrolled at the school are "neighborhood kids." We have a lot of kids not in our boundary attending because of the reputation of the school. Why was Castilero on the list for closure? Very simple: The same reason--SJUSD has kept the boundary small so kids who live outside the boundary area could attend easily.

My children are part Hispanic, so I could use the race card and put my kids in any school I wanted in SJUSD. I chose not to use the race card and signed my kids up as white because I didn't think race mattered. I had wrongly assumed they were asking for race just to see what the ethnic makeup of the school is. It wasn't long after I signed up my kids that I realized how much race matters in SJUSD.

Some people are saying that a bigger school district is better. I don't believe that too be true. If bigger was better when it comes to power in Sacramento, why doesn't Oak Grove or Union School district try to merge with SJUSD or some other district?

I know there are some people who are not happy with the new proposed school district. I know no matter where the lines fall someone would not be happy. Either it was drawn too far north or too far south. Someone wants to be in the new proposed district, or someone does not want to. As of right now, until we have a feasibility study done and the district and county talks to us about this, it is only a proposed district. For all we know the district will say you need to go farther north and take the boundary up to Capitol Expressway. Or they can come back and say you can only have "Almaden Valley." That would mean the new district would not include Allen, Randol, Steinbeck or John Muir.

What we are trying to do is just have a smaller and more accountable school district. If I lived in the northern end of the district, I would be trying the same thing. I do live in the proposed boundary (I rent), but within two years I want to buy a house in San Jose and believe me there is no way I could afford Almaden Valley. In all likelihood I will buy in the central or northern end of the district. So this split from SJUSD will directly affect my kids. I would not be helping with this effort if I wasn't pretty sure this would be best for the district overall. And I cannot be 100 percent sure that this is the best until we have a feasibility study done. What I don't think the district understands is if it would help us right now get the feasibility study by the county, and it came out that this would hurt any of the children, then 95 percent of us would abandon ship. Those of us that have gotten signatures and that have spoken to the media and the district would go back and say: OK, we are stopping here; this is not a great idea. That would be the end of the new proposed district.

Is it really such a bad idea to have a feasibility study done and find out if having a smaller district would help the schools in the northern and central part of the district?

Jeannette Clarke

Almaden Valley