Saratoga News

Petition from Camino Barco neighborhood goes to county

By Michelle Alaimo

With the yearlong school district reorganization study finished, the Santa Clara County Committee on School District Organization has begun the task of hearing territory transfer petitions that were put on hold during the scrutiny. The first item on the agenda: a 38-parcel petition from residents in the Camino Barco/Apricot Hill area of Saratoga.

The petition, which was turned in to the county Office of Education last summer, is among the first to have a public hearing scheduled since the committee decided the boundary issue. However, many residents contacted by the Saratoga News did not even remember signing the petition, and none of those contacted had children young enough to attend Saratoga schools.

Larry Shirey, senior research analyst for the county Office of Education, said the main reason cited for the petition was a lack of sense of community identity in the Campbell schools, but he said he was not surprised that some residents had forgotten about the petition. After all, he said, it was signed almost a year ago.

The public hearing is scheduled for Feb. 25 and will begin at Marshall Lane Elementary School at 5:30 p.m. before moving on to an as yet unknown Saratoga elementary school at approximately 7:45 p.m., Shirey said. The petition covers parcels on Chester, Allendale, Apricot Hill and Camino Barco avenues and requests that the properties be moved from the Campbell school districts to the Saratoga school districts.

Camino Barco resident Ellen McLaughlin said their area is "extremely isolated." She said the back side of her street has a creek with wild vegetation running through it, forcing her neighbors to drive over to see her.

McLaughlin said her children went to Saratoga High School even though they lived in the Campbell school district because at the time, SHS was accepting interdistrict transfers.

The area covered by the petition includes streets that are partly in both school districts and is near the Twain Court area that recently successfully petitioned to transfer into the Saratoga Union School District.

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